Love at High Altitudes
by Rose Lupus
Summary: AU Stripped of his powers and much of what he held dear, Clark is now a recluse living alone in the mountains. A mystery woman he rescues from an icy death might be just what he needs to heal his broken heart and find his way back to his destiny.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I, of course, own none of these characters and have no rights or affiliation of any sort in relation to them or Smallville. I merely play with them for the entirely non-profitable enjoyment of myself and other Smallville fans. Please don't sue! **  
**

**Summary:** (AU) Stripped of his powers and much of what he held dear, Clark is now a recluse living alone in the mountains. A mystery woman he rescues from an icy death might be just what he needs to heal his broken heart and find his way back to his destiny.

**Timeline: **Basically canon up until about season 5, minus a couple of main characters and their storyline. A few events are omitted or occur at a different time to suit the needs of the story, everything different is (hopefully) explained during the course of the story.

**Rating:** K-T, PG

* * *

**Prologue  
**

* * *

Clark's feet crunched through the unmarked snow. A fresh layer had fallen the day before yesterday and for the most part, it was a pristine white, unmarked by any animal or human trail. Clark's hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his thick jacket, his head down watching his feet as he reached the tree-line bordering the small clearing around his cabin.

Clark had lived there for almost six years. He'd bought the mid-sized cabin from an elderly couple who, in their more mobile years, had used it as a holiday home. Clark had moved there on a warm spring day with a suitcase of clothes, a pick-up load of supplies and a broken heart. He'd wanted nothing more than to stay there until the end of his days, alone with the trees and bird song.

The isolated cabin was two-thirds of the way up a mountain, only accessible by a four-wheel drive trail. The nearest "neighbours" lived an hour away on the outskirts of a small town called Oyen, where he bought his supplies once every three months. Not that he knew any of them. The only people he'd spoken to in the six years he'd lived in the area were the middle-aged woman who ran the grocery store and the two men who worked in the hardware store.

After walking through the woods for around fifteen minutes Clark came to his destination; a small clearing in the forest that afforded a clear view of the valley and the eastern continuation of the range. Clark caught his breath as he gazed at the mist filled valley, and the orange halo rising over the distant mountain tops. The beauty of a mountain sunrise still surprised him with its sheer scale, despite the number he'd observed. They were even more spectacular in winter, with the sunlight glinting off the snow and the chill keeping him alert.

He lost track of time as he took in the sight before him. It was only as he was turning to leave that he caught sight of it; a flash of bright red.

Six years of mountain living had taught him that nature had many colours, but this particular shade of scarlet was not one of them - especially not in winter. Clark squinted down the mountain in curiosity. Surely no hiker would be that far up the mountain? He'd never seen them this close, and never in winter. They tended to stick to the trails in the cold season; if they came at all. Drawn by curiosity, he carefully made his way down the face, zigzagging through the trees.

As he came closer he could see that it was a parka lying in the snow. At first he assumed it had been dropped by a hiker and he was busy wondering why someone would have taken it off in this kind of weather - he'd noticed a bit of a drop in the temperature that suggested another fall of snow was on its way. It was not a good time to be stripping off layers. Clark abandoned this train of thought as he came within ten metres of the parka and realised it had legs.

Clark speed down the rest of the slope, to get to the fallen hiker, a sense of urgency overtaking him. Falling to his knees, he gently rolled the woman onto her back. Her face was almost as pale as the snow it had been resting on, and her lips were faintly blue, but he could see the small puffs of her breath on the cold air. Clark let out a breath of his own in relief. He carefully wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her half up onto his lap as he tried to rouse her.

"Hey," Clark spoke to her gently, "Wake up. Open your eyes."

Receiving no response, he pulled her closer and patted her cold cheek.

"Come on sweetheart," Clark called her, having no idea what her name was, "Come on, wake up, please..."

Hazel eyes cracked wearily open to look at him, and he couldn't help but grin in relief. She opened her mouth as if to speak.

"Shhh," Clark hushed, scooping her up off the ground, "You're alright, I've got you."

The hiker blinked at him for a moment before wrapping her limp arms around his neck, cuddling into his warmth. Clark hugged her more tightly to himself and continued to murmur words of comfort to her as he made his way home.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1  
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**

Clark wrestled the door open as best he could with his arms full, kicked it shut behind him and headed straight for the fire.

He carefully deposited his load on the thick rug before the fire and grabbed a cushion from the armchair to put beneath her head. He pulled her into a sitting position so he could peel off the wet, red anorak. She lolled unresponsively in his arms as he laid her back down to tug off her boots and socks. After a moment's indecision, spent rubbing some warmth into her icy feet, he took off the wet snow pants too.

Clark pulled the blanket from the seat of his sofa tucked it around his patient. He paused for a moment to look at her properly. Chocolate brown hair framed a face with elegantly arched eyebrows and a straight, smallish nose. Her long dark lashes stood out against the pallor of her skin. He guessed she was about his age... maybe a little younger. There was something almost child-like in the soft line of her joy and the faint dimples either side of her mouth; something that tugged at a protective instinct deep inside him.

He brought a hand up to touch her cheek which was still unsettlingly cool. Clark frowned. She needed more blankets. And pillows. And maybe those heat packs he had lying around somewhere...

---++--------++---

She woke slowly. The first thing she noticed was the delicious warmth enveloping her; a much appreciated change to the previous bone-chilling cold. She flexed fingers and toes in appreciation as she listened to the soft crackling of the fire at her side. She cracked her eyes open to see the flames flickering before her.

A vaguely familiar voice sounded from behind her.

"Are you awake?"

She turned her head to her other side to find a dark-haired man rising to his feet from the couch. Looking up at him from the floor, the first adjective that popped into her head was tall - very tall. She guessed he was a few inches over six feet tall, and built like a quarterback. He crouched beside her, his lightly stubbled, highly attractive face expressing his concern.

"You've been asleep half the day," he informed her she looked into his curiously greenish blue eyes, "I was starting to worry."

"I should get you something to eat," he said to her – or maybe to himself; she couldn't quite tell. She closed her eyes as he turned away. Her head felt kind of fuzzy... and slow. Almost like she had a hangover.

"Here," he said, returning in what seemed like seconds. She opened her eyes to see he was holding a mug of steaming liquid. _Soup?_

She sat up from the nest of blankets and pillows to reach for the mug, aided by the large, warm hand that materialised at her back.

Unexpectedly, the change in position awoke a stabbing pain that drove her to clutch her hands to the back of her head.

"Ow!" She pronounced, expressing as much surprise as pain.

"What's wrong?" the man asked, alarmed, immediately putting the mug of tomato soup down on the coffee table behind him and focusing his attention on her. "Did you hit your head?"

"I-" she frowned in confusion as he gently removed her hands from her head to inspect the source of her discomfort, "I don't know. I guess so."

"You're bleeding a bit," he frowned at the large bump on her scalp, "I should have noticed that."

"I didn't notice either," Lois pointed out, but he was already getting up.

She looked around the large room, noting the unusually steep roof above her. _For the snow,_ she thought, _so it slides off instead of building up and breaking the roof. _She frowned to herself – why did she know that? Did she live here? For a second something flickered in her mind, but it was gone before she could grasp it properly. She tried to summon up the memory again, but was distracted by the throbbing pain of her head.

The dark-haired guy returned after a couple of minutes with a first aid box. He dropped to his knees and rummaged through the kit, pulling out a pre-packaged alcohol wipe and a tube of antiseptic cream. Pushing a couple of pillows out of the way, he settled himself behind her.

"This will sting a little," he said apologetically before he began cleaning the wound. She nodded automatically, a little taken aback by his proximity. He seemed quite comfortable around her. Who was he? Again she found herself drawing a blank.

"I can't remember," she mumbled to herself.

"Pardon?"

"Where are we?" she asked, twisting to face him.

"Mount Heather," he answered. Seeing her blank look he frowned and added, "North of Oyen?"

She shook her head in frustration. This information didn't mean anything to her.

"I can't remember," she told him, fear rising in her chest, "I don't remember Oyen. I don't remember what I did yesterday. I can't think of where I went to high school, or when my birthday is, or if I like tomato soup. I don't remember _anything_."

"Shhh..." he whispered, taking hold of her upper arm and rubbing them in a comforting gesture, "It's alright. This is probably just from hitting your head. It won't last long."

Lois found his deep voice calming, so she focused on it to keep her mind off the gaping hole in her memory. She took a deep breath. He was right, it was probably temporary. She felt like she'd heard that somewhere – that amnesia rarely lasted beyond a few days or weeks. She had no idea where she'd heard it, but it sounded hopeful.

"Do you know your name?" he asked her when she'd calmed.

"Lois," She replied instantly, surprising them both with the knowledge. She wasn't sure where the name had come from, but she was cheered both by the scrap of her identity itself and the smile that it drew from her handsome companion. He had this infectious, almost boyish smile that demanded she grin stupidly back at him.

"Good! That's something," he told her, still smiling. "Maybe you're already getting your memory back."

Lois felt a rush of affection for the man before her. Did he always know just what to say? She got the feeling he did; that he could fix all of her problems with a few words and a smile. Who _was _he?

"Are you my husband?" she squinted at him, as though that might clear her memory. At his shocked look, she guessed again, "Boyfriend?"

"I- I'm," Clark stuttered adorably, looking at her with wide eyes, "No. I – uh – I mean I'm not your... I just found you."

"Oh," Lois quickly stomped on the disappointment that flashed up at his denial. "What's your name?"

"Clark. Clark Kent," he said offering her his hand.

Lois stared at it for a second before realising what he meant, a grinned at the quaint gesture. Slipping her hand into his large, callused one she shook it firmly.

"Where are you from?" she wondered aloud.

"Kansas," he replied, a little confused by her random question, "Smallville."

She blinked at him.

"Seriously? You're from a place called _Smallville_?"

"Well, yeah..." he trailed off, growing more confused when Lois grinned.

"Well that it explains then," she nodded to herself.

"Explains what?"

"You're very... Smallville," she burst into laughter at the affronted look he gave her.

"Don't worry," she told him, "That's a good thing."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2

* * *

**

"I'll take that," Clark interrupted Lois's attempt to stand up from the couch with a hand on her shoulder.

She had been going to take the empty mug to the kitchen, but he'd guessed her intention before she was an inch off the seat.

"I broke my head, not my legs," Lois assured him, gesturing with her ice-pack, "I can still walk."

"You're my guest. It's polite."

Lois raised an eyebrow. He hadn't even let her walk two metres to the couch after she'd woken up; he'd scooped both her and the blankets up and carried her there. She had to admit that she'd found that irresistibly charming and yes, okay, maybe she found the mug thing a bit on the sweet side too, but his incessant chivalry and hovering was starting to itch at her feminist streak. She wasn't some little pink princess crying out to be rescued!

"You don't get sick of waiting hand and foot on all your guests?"

"I don't get a lot of guests," Clark shrugged as he walked to the end of the large room that serviced as a kitchen.

"Really? I would have thought they'd all over you," Lois said; her eyes drifting downwards. _At least the XX chromosomes must be..._ She snapped her eyes back up to his face after he placed the mug in his sink, "You know - since you treat them so well."

Walking back to her he explained.

"I don't invite people up here. And they don't exactly drop by."

"Why?" How could he live here all alone like that? She thought she'd probably lose it if she had to.

"I don't know anyone in town. And I don't have neighbours. You're actually the first person I've seen on the mountain," he told her as he resumed his spot next to her on the couch.

"Wait... does that mean I'm your first guest?" Lois eyed him in disbelief when he nodded, "Ever?"

She meant the addition as a joke, but he was so strange it might actually be true. He could have been homeschooled in Kansas by his parents. Maybe they belonged to some strange, matriarchal little religious cult that shunned outsiders and produced freakishly well-mannered little boys who communed with nature instead of watching TV...

"Well of course not the first ever," he scoffed, with a hint of amusement, "I've had guests. Just not since I've been living here."

"And that's how long?" Lois queried.

"About six years."

"What are you? A hermit?"

"No, I'm just... " Clark trailed off as he thought. How could explain this to her? "I just needed to get away from things for a while once. So I did. It was only meant to be for a little while – but I grew to really love it here and since there really wasn't really anything I needed to go back to... I just didn't." 

"Uh-huh," Lois responded with an arched brow, "Six-year vacation on an uninhabited mountain. That just screams extraversion."

"I-" Clark started to protest but - catching the determined look upon her face - he decided to just give in, "Okay. Maybe I am a bit reclusive."

Lois gave him a wide smile tinged with triumph, and Clark felt an answering curve forming on his own face. They sat smiling at each other like that until Lois broke the eye contact to stare at the blanket on her knees. Clark frowned, unable to discern the cause of her change in demeanour.

"I suppose I should be getting out of your way then," Lois said after a moment of silence, "so you can get back to whatever it is you hermits do up in the mountains all by yourselves."

She was trying to sound casual, though she felt trepidation at the prospect of leaving. She didn't remember anything or anyone from her life before today; so despite the fact that she knew next to nothing about Clark, he was the only person in the world who wasn't a complete stranger to her.

However, she was a stranger to him. He didn't need her taking up space on her couch and complicating his life. She didn't want to be a burden; especially since he clearly already had a few too many to carry - people didn't just retract from the world like he had if their lives were all puppies and kittens and white picket fences. They did it because life had thrown more crap at them than they could sanely tolerate.

"I'd rather you didn't," Lois tilted her head to look sideways at him as he continued, "While I don't believe that bump will hurt you anymore than it already has, you did almost freeze to death this morning. I think it would do you a lot of good to stay where you are for now."

"Are you sure?" Lois said, a swell of relief bubbling up inside her. It seemed she might not have to launch off into the great unknown just yet.

"Of course!" he responded warmly. Then he frowned as something occurred to him.

"What is it?" Lois asked, hoping he hadn't just changed his mind about keeping her around.

She'd be fine of course, she reminded herself, if he had. She'd just report to the nearest police station, she supposed. She didn't know if she'd been missing long enough to be a missing person, but surely they could figure out where she belonged. Before she could progress plan B any further, Clark responded to her question.

"I forgot," Clark was still frowning to himself, "You can't go anyway; the roads are snowed over. I'm the only one up here, so they don't exactly plough them regularly."

"So I'm stuck here?"

Clark nodded.

"Probably for another five or six weeks," he said apologetically, "Then it should be clear enough for me to take you down to the town."

"Six _weeks??_" Lois eyes widened.

"Sorry," he shrugged helplessly, "The road down isn't the best normally, and with the snow... well, the only way out of here is in a helicopter."

"Do you-"

"I don't have a helicopter," he answered her half-asked question in amusement, "That was a figure of speech. There isn't a clearing big enough or flat enough for someone to land one anyway."

Lois squinted at him, considering something.

"You're not by any chance planning to cut me up into little pieces and store me in your freezer, are you?"

Clark gave her a stunned look. Where on earth had that come from?

"Of course not!"

"Okay," Lois accepted "I just had to check, because this really sounds like the setup for a B grade horror movie."

"Well, I'm not a serial killer."

"Serial killers never admit to being serial killers," Lois pointed out playfully.

"Do serial killers rescue their victims from snow drifts and feed them their mother's tomato soup?"

"Probably not,' Lois conceded.

Clark glanced at the clock over the fireplace. Five-thirty.

"Do you want to see something?" he asked the woman next to him.

"Sure," shrugged Lois.

Clark grabbed her socks and boots from the floor before the fire and brought them to her.

"We're going outside?" Lois guessed as she put them on.

"Not far," Clark said as helped her up.

Lois rolled her eyes at him when he firmly wrapped her in the blankets, tucking them in at her shoulder like a toga, except her arms were trapped underneath. She felt ridiculously like a toddler being swaddled up for to go play in the snow. He picked her up as she had half expected him to – he obviously hadn't taken in her early comments to heart.

When he set her down on the snow covered decking outside the front door, her jaw dropped.

"Woah," Lois sucked in a breath at the sight before her. The cabin faced the west, giving a beautiful view of the sunset. It was half set already, the clear orange-red light colouring the clouds and the slightly glittering snow.

"Yeah, it's like that," Clark smiled at her awed expression. It was strange to have someone do this with him.

He wondered if he'd looked like that the first time he'd watched a sunset from his front yard.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N**: You know, I think this is the longest chapter I've ever written? 1662 words (or 1912 according to FFnet (??))! :-D And this definitely the most regularly updated story I've ever produced, as anyone who has been reading the Sounds Kinda Nice Series can attest (Sorry guys!). Anyway, here is the next chapter!

**

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Chapter 3  


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**

Lois rolled over in the large bed and stretched her arms with a yawn. She frowned at her still aching head as she slipped out of the large bed. Next to the bed she found a pair of cotton sweatpants – Clark must have put them out for her to wear. Lois pulled them up and yanked the drawstrings tight so they wouldn't fall off and sat back down on the bed to roll up the cuffs.

It was Clark's bed. She'd offered to sleep on the couch (which had turned out to be a fold-out bed) but Clark had point blank refused, since she was not only his guest but recuperating from a near-death experience. He said he really didn't mind; he sometimes slept on the fold-out in winter anyway, since it was so close to the fire. Lois guessed that was the Kansas farm-boy upbringing shining through once again.

Looking down at herself, she decided she just needed a pair of floppy shoes and a red nose to complete the look. Both the track-pants and the old football jersey Clark had offered to her to sleep in were grossly oversized. They also had a nice pine-y, fresh sort of smell to them. Not that she had been sniffing them on purpose at all – the scent had just sort of wafted up to her nose.

Padding out of the bedroom, she looked around for her host. He wasn't in the main room, and she couldn't hear him moving about anywhere. She guessed he must be outside somewhere. Looking around the large L-shaped main room, she noticed that Clark had folded up the sofa and neatly draped the quilt over it. Her mouth twitched in amusement. _Smallville_.

She wandered over to the tall bookcase that stood against the wall to her left and trailed her hand over some of the spines. Crime novels, mysteries, history books, books on psychology, astronomy, art and cooking, a heavy looking physics textbook, bird watching guides and more inhabited the shelves. She found a worn copy of To Kill a Mockingbird on the third shelf. She opened it to find 'Clark Kent' and a class number scrawled in the top right-hand corner of the facing page in a neat, but clearly boyish hand.

Slotting the book back into place, she sidled over to the dark wood desk at its side. A plain silver photo frame caught her attention. A sandy-haired man and kind-faced red head were hugging a dark-haired little boy between them. She leaned closer; was that cute little boy Clark? She had trouble believing that he had ever been so small. She guessed he was four or five in the photo; the couple in their mid-thirties. The sound of the door opening in the kitchen startled her from her investigation.

"Good morning," Clark greeted, shucking off his boots at the door before heading over to the fireplace to unload an armful of firewood.

"Morning!" Lois grinned at him and his red plaid button-down.

"Are these your parents?" Lois asked, nodding at the picture as he came over to her.

"Yeah," Clark smiled at the picture.

"Are they back home in Kansas?" Lois asked.

Clark's eyes clouded over at her question.

"Actually they both passed away," his voice was sad and quiet as he said this.

Lois inwardly winced at having brought it up. She was once again reminded that she didn't really belong here, and that he would probably much prefer to just be alone.

"Oh," Lois bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry. It wasn't your fault," Clark responded. His face was neutral, but she could see something twisting away inside of him.

"They look like they were great parents," she said, trying to distract him from his grief.

"The best," Clark smiled at her. "That was taken the year after they adopted me."

Lois had been wondering if that was the case, as she hadn't noticed a real likeness between him and the pair. She wondered for a second if he was going to say something more, but instead he abruptly changed the topic.

"Do you like scrambled eggs?" he asked.

"Umm..." Lois shrugged following him to the kitchen area, "That comes under of the heading 'Things Lois Doesn't Remember'."

Clark pulled out a chair for her at the kitchen table, and she sat down with a quiet 'thank-you'.

"I'll make you some. They're made from powder, but they really aren't that bad if you use a good recipe."

Clark was rambling, he knew, but it was just so strange to have this woman sitting in his kitchen, watching him as he set up what he needed to cook. To be honest, he found it a little awkward to have someone in his space after spending so long in his own company. It was like being an actor on stage for the first time. He was hyperaware of her presence and couldn't help but look at her every couple of minutes to see how she was reacting.

He found himself rattling on about substituting long-life ingredients for fresh foods and his first winter at the cabin when he'd lived on canned tomatoes and spam for two weeks because he had underestimated how much he would need over the season.

Lois frowned in thought as he deposited the plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of her.

"Won't you run out of food with me here too?" she asked.

"No," Clark shook his head, "I always overstock now; you never know what'll happen up here."

"Prepare, prepare, prepare?" Lois smiled.

"What?"

"Oh come on – you don't know the boy scouts motto?"

"Oh. No. I never was one," he answered, surprising her.

"Pity," Lois told him, "I bet you would have been the leader of the troupe."

Clark smiled briefly.

"How's your head?" he asked.

"It hurts a little bit," she admitted, her attention drawn back to the throbbing.

Clark stood up and walked around the table to check her head. He gently swept her hair aside.

"It's closing up well enough. I should put something on it though. I'll get you some Tylenol," he told her and headed for the pantry, relieved to have something to distract himself with.

"What do you do up here?" Lois asked him when he returned pulling up a chair behind hers.

"I read a lot, go hiking, that sort of thing... I write too," Clark answered absent-mindedly as he applied ointment to cut on her head.

"Novels?"

"A couple of nature guides based on the local area, actually. I am trying my hand at fiction at the moment, but it's not finished."

"You don't have a job?"

Clark ducked his head sheepishly, "Well I'm, ah, sort of... well off. It's not really necessary."

"Well off?" Lois asked intrigued by his vague description, her curiosity overriding her tact as she turned and straddled the seat to face him.

"Umm," Clark shifted uncomfortably, "I have enough."

Lois crossed arms over the back of the seat and rested her chin on top, waiting for him to elaborate.

"Maybe a little more than I'll ever really need," Clark corrected himself, squirming under her intent gaze. "I don't really live an expensive life."

"Did you win the lottery or something?" Clark shook his head.

"I inherited some from my parents, and I used to have a job in a company that paid pretty well. I invested some of it in the stock market and well, you know..."

Lois nodded. She really wouldn't have picked him for an executive kind of guy, but it did explain how he was able to live like this (at least from a financial perspective). Seeing that she'd made him uncomfortable enough with her questions, she let it go, and asked him about his book.

+------+

_That night:_

Clark walked up to the wall opposite the bed and slid open a couple of inconspicuous panels that Lois had failed to notice earlier to reveal a television screen with a narrow shelf below harbouring a DVD player. Clark crouched down and pulled open the cupboards below the television to reveal a carefully organised and surprisingly extensive DVD library.

Lois's face lit up at the sight before her. So Clark Kent wasn't raised by a technophobic cult after all!

"The TV doesn't get reception up here," he explained. "I buy a handful each time I'm down in Oyen restocking. I haven't watched half of them though."

Lois dropped to her knees beside him and started flicking through the titles

"Oh, it is definitely movie marathon night tonight!" Lois decided, plucking out several whose titles appealed to her. A few of them looked familiar to her – ET, The Poltergeist, Jaws – she couldn't recall watching them, but somehow she knew what they were about.

"Okay," Clark smiled at her enthusiasm.

"Do you have popcorn?" she looked to him hopefully.

"Sure," Clark answered, leaving her to peruse his DVD collection.

When he returned a little later with a large bowl of buttered popcorn he found her sitting cross-legged on the foot of his double bed engrossed in the opening scenes of The Bourne Identity. She accepted the bowl with a quick smile and thanks before returning her attention to the screen.

"Where you going?" Lois's eyes left the screen when she noticed him heading back out the door. Clark turned back at the unexpected question.

"I was just going to go – " Clark gestured to the door.

"Smallville, you can't have a movie night by yourself, that's just sad!" Lois interrupted him when she caught his intention to leave her by herself.

"Smallville?" Clark asked in confusion.

Lois ignored his question, merely shifting over and patting the space beside her pointedly. Clark stared at her for a minute before he uncertainly settled himself beside her and began to watch the film.

Lois was watching from the corner of her eye and smiled at his stiff posture.

"Relax!" she ordered, passing him the popcorn. "I promise I won't bite."


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N**: This is just a short one to give you a bit more on Clark and his history.

**

* * *

Chapter 4  


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**

Clark sat at his desk, the photo of his parents in his hands. Jonathan and Martha Kent. He traced the familiar faces, lost in thought.

Lois had fallen asleep next to him towards the end of the third movie in her marathon. Clark had quietly turned off the television and replaced the DVDs in the cupboard. Then he had rolled back the covers on the side of the bed he had occupied and cautiously transferred the sleeping brunette and tucked her in.

That morning he'd found her looking at this same picture. It was his favourite, the only one not stored in the attic above his bedroom. When he'd first moved in he had placed all the photo albums, yearbooks - everything that reminded him of his past – there because it hurt too much to be reminded of all that which he had lost. Eventually though – he couldn't quite remember when – he'd felt the need to see them again, so he'd retrieved that one photo.

They all looked so happy and carefree in that casually captured moment - it was taken years before his father's heart problems had started to cause trouble. His mother, try as she might to pretend she was coping had always looked so worried after that first attack. The doctors had called it a small infarction, but it had a huge effect on their lives. His father was prescribed half a dozen different types of pills to be taken daily on varying schedules, a constant reminder of his frailty.

Clark, in the later years of high-school by then, had taken over many of his father's chores; more when the attacks of agonising pain and ER visits had become more frequent. His mother, though she did an excellent job of holding everything together, was clearly worried about her husband. Clark knew his own troubles during that period hadn't exactly eased her mind either.

The second attack – the final attack – came after a period of many months where his father had appeared to be in good health, and enthusiastically leading a political campaign. Clark and Martha had struggled to cope with the sudden loss. Clark had dropped out of college to take over the farm, although Martha had not wanted him to.

Clark smiled at the thought of his mother; she was so strong, so unfailingly kind and moral - the guiding light of his life, even more so after his father's death. She had taken over his father's senate seat with his encouragement - he knew that she would be able to do so much good for the world from that position.

She had been an excellent senator, a true force of change and reform in the political arena. She was beloved both by the people she represented and most of the people she worked with. She'd been running very successful campaign for re-election the year she had died; frequently travelling back and forth between Washington and Kansas. He hadn't seen her in the month before her plane went down, though they talked on the phone whenever she had time.

Clark remembered with icy clarity the numbness that had overcome him when he realised he would never have a chance to see her again. The receiver had slipped from his hands; the distant voice's continuing, meaningless words echoing in his ears as he walked away. He'd retreated to the loft and sat staring at a crack in one of the floorboards for hours. No one had been able to get through to him, not even – Clark stopped that train of thought abruptly. Thinking of her only ever lead to pain, hurt, anger and more pain, he reminded himself. He did not need that, not again.

Replacing the photograph on his desk with a little more force than necessary, Clark turned away to go set up the fold-out bed.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N**: On with the show! :-)

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* * *

Chapter 5  


* * *

**

"I'm coming with you."

After five days of being cooped up in the cabin, Lois was entirely sick of 'recuperating'. Brain injury, or no brain injury, she was not made for sitting around reading and watching DVDs all day. She didn't care where Clark was going, as long as it was outside. As soon as she'd seen him reaching for his coat, she'd made up her mind to accompany him.

"I don't think that's the best –" Clark started to protest, but was quickly interrupted.

"I'm coming with you," Lois repeated, pulling on her boots.

Part of the attraction was also wearing clothes that didn't dwarf her for once – she only had what she had worn the day Clark found her. Clarks clothes fit her like a bad eighties fad.

"You're recovering from hypothermia and a head injury, and you want to go out there?" Clark thumbed the snow that could be seen falling on the other side of the window.

"I'm fine now!" Lois insisted, "And the head injury wasn't even that bad!"

"You have _amnesia,_" Clark emphasised, pulling the coat out of her hands.

"Like the cold is going to make _that_ any worse!" Lois argued, trying ineffectively to tug her parka out of his firm grip.

"Fine! I'll just go without it!" Lois let go of the coat with a frustrated huff and reached for the door knob.

"Wait," Clark grabbed her arm to stop her. Lois turned back to him expectantly.

Clark handed over the parka with a sigh of resignation. She'd been looking fidgety for the last couple of days – he'd known he wasn't going to be able to keep her in for much longer. And after all, the wound on her head had closed up and she didn't really seem to be suffering any ill-effects from her episode of exposure.

"Thank you!" Lois pulled on the coat and zipped it up, her eyes sparkling with a hint of triumph.

Clark grabbed a thick dark brown scarf from the row of hooks by the door.

"If you'recoming..."

Clark pulled her hood up and wrapped the scarf around her neck. Pulling a pair of gloves from his coat pocket, he handed them to her. Lois rolled her eyes at his fussing, but put them on anyway. Clark took each gloved hand and tightened the wrist straps so they wouldn't fall off.

"Are you happy now?" Lois asked in that amused yet tolerant tone he was coming to expect whenever he looked after her.

"Not quite," Clark retrieved a pair of wraparound sunglasses from a drawer in the kitchen and handed them to her, "For the glare."

"You're not wearing any," Lois pointed out as she slipped them on.

Clark pulled an identical pair from the same drawer waved them in answer.

"You have a stockpile?"

"They break," Clark shrugged, "So I have a couple spare."

"Boy scout," Lois tossed over her shoulder as she headed out the door.

Clark slipped on the glasses and rushed after her.

"So what are we doing?" Lois asked from the bottom of the stairs.

"I was just going to take a walk and grab some firewood on the way back. Nothing interesting," Clark commented as he followed her down from the deck.

"Better than the couch," Lois said, taking a deep breath of the clean, cold air before releasing it as a small white cloud.

The roughly oval shaped clearing around the cabin was covered in a generous layer of white, as was the small building Lois assumed was a garage. There were already tracks in the snow – presumably, Clark had been out before she woke up that morning, early-riser that he was.

It didn't take her long to discover it was a much better idea to follow in the wake of Clark-the-human-snow-plough than to trudge through the soft top layer of snow herself. She surprised how much effort it took her to retrieve her feet each time they sank into the snow under her weight. Lois blamed her days of convalescence – clearly all that sitting around had done nothing for her fitness level.

"That's the road down there," Clark nodded a direction.

"Where?" Lois' eyebrows drew together in confusion.

"There," Clark pointed, "Where there aren't any trees."

Lois looked from Clark to the area he indicated – which was to her eyes, just another patch of snow-covered mountain, and a steep patch at that.

"That is _not_ a road."

"There's a trail under there."

"A mountain goat trail?"

"A four wheel drive trail."

Lois stared incredulously at the twenty degree incline, and then turned back to Clark.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me. They'd fall off."

"Nope," Clark shook his head, "It's not all like that – just the first twenty metres or so. After that it goes parallel to the mountain face and then it's more winding than steep."

"Uh-huh," Lois was not looking forward to that particular road trip.

They walked in a companionable silence for while, Clark in front, breaking in a path, Lois following behind him. As Clark walked along, he wondered how soon he could shepherd Lois back inside without raising her suspicions that he was babying her. He didn't notice she had wandered off to get a better view through the trees until she called out to him.

"Ummmm... Clark?" Lois's hesitant voice came from a little way behind him.

Clark turned to find Lois struggling to free her left leg from a narrow crevasse in the snow. She was jammed in up to her knee and simply didn't have enough leverage to pull it out.

"It's not funny!" Lois snapped at him when he started to chuckle.

Clark didn't mean to laugh, but he just couldn't help himself. He was still chuckling as walked back to her and grabbed hold of her under her arms to hoist her up out of hole.

"Keep your foot straight," he instructed.

Lois nodded to him and gripped his shoulders as he pulled her free. She kicked the snow of her boot when he set her down on more solid ground.

"You have to be careful around this area. The ground is rough, and the snow just makes it worse by covering it up."

"Yeah, yeah," Lois mumbled, glad she could hide her embarrassment behind her scarf.

She silently cursed the snow that had found its way up her pant leg as she followed Clark, who – luckily – seemed to be headed back to the cabin.

++----++

Lois took of her boots then returned the scarf and her jacket to the hooks. As Clark followed her in, she was trying to remember which drawer the sunglasses came from – the top one closest to the door? Opening it she found she was right; there was yet another pair still in the drawer. As she replaced the glasses, her fingers brushed over something smooth. Automatically, she pulled out the object to see what it was.

The photo was framed in simply carved wood painted with a black gloss that was chipped on one of the corners. With long, dark brown hair falling neatly around a face still soft with youth, the girl in the photo was maybe twenty, and smiling prettily for the camera.

"Who's this?" Lois held up the photograph to Clark as he turned back in her direction, having just deposited an arm load of firewood into the basket by the door.

He momentarily winced when he took in what she was holding out to him, before smoothing his expression to a numb blank. He took it from her, his mouth a straight, serious line.

"Nobody," He said shortly, burying the frame back in the drawer she had left open.

"That's not a nobody face," Lois contradicted him, "That's a _somebody_ face."

Clark turned back to her.

"She doesn't matter," he stated firmly.

"Au contraire... clearly she does matter. She's in one out of TWO photos I've seen in this place. And _her_ photo was facedown in a drawer."

"So?" Clark said, tight-lipped.

"So that's classic soap opera symbolism for you don't want to see her, _but _you're also not ready to let her go."

"Lois," he said, frustration starting to leak into his tone, "Can you just–"

"Ex-girlfriend?" Lois interrupted, "Or ex-fiance?"

Clark just stared at her. He was shocked firstly by how close she was to the mark and secondly by how she had latched on to this painful episode of his history and unravelled it so efficiently from a single photograph.

He was beginning to suspect that she had a job at a police department waiting for her back home – wherever her home was.

"Do you _ever _let anything go?"

Lois shrugged, "How do you expect me to know? I'm amnesia-girl, remember?"


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N**: This is not a very happy chapter - it hurt me to write it, but it had to be done.

* * *

**Chapter 6  


* * *

**

Clark was moping.

Ever since she'd asked about that damn photo, Clark had had this pensive look on his face. Sure he responded when she spoke to him, and he was still fussing over her as his manners seemed to dictate, but he wasn't himself. He wasn't talking any more than he had to, and when he did speak, he did so absent-mindedly and briefly. She'd prised exactly three sentences of more than three words from him in the last twenty-four hours.

Currently, he was sitting at the kitchen table, staring absently out the window. Lois was trying to read a fiction novel she'd randomly selected from Clark's collection, but she wasn't having much luck. She kept reading the same paragraph over and over, repeatedly failing to absorb any meaning from the text. She snuck another glance over the back of the couch – he was still just sitting there.

Lois sighed – great, she'd officially broken her only companion on this god forsaken mountain. If she'd known bringing up woman in the photo was going to be such a disaster, she would have kept her big, nosy mouth shut. Or at least, she definitely would have tried – the mystery of it was still eating away at her, but that was not nearly as bad as the idea of five weeks of polite monosyllables and periods of melancholic silence.

She loathed the silence. It was such a marked contrast to the comfortable banter that they'd developed over the course of the week. At first Clark had been merely concerned and friendly, but the longer she was there, the more he'd seem to adjust to her presence. The more he relaxed with her, the more comfortable she felt and the more she forgot they were supposed to be strangers. A couple of times she'd got so absorbed in their back-and-forth that she even forgot to worry about her lost identity – that disturbing blank in her mind where there should be memories, names, faces, places...

Now that was all she could think about. Well, that and the brunette in the picture – who she was quickly coming to despise. Clearly the little brunette in the photo had been a rather epic episode in Clark's history – and even more apparently, she had crushed his heart into thousand different pieces. She would bet anything that it was her fault – she just couldn't see Clark as the instigator of a break-up. If he treated a stranger as well as he treated her, she couldn't imagine how devoted he would be to someone he loved.

The thought of someone hurting Clark like that made her furious. She doubted she'd ever met a guy as honourable, or as kind as Clark Kent. There was also this endearing, magnetic quality about him that she couldn't quite name... something that made her want to just follow him around, listen to him talk. She couldn't imagine why anyone would ever want to leave him; how they could bear to break him.

She was startled from her thoughts by a sudden shifting of the couch as Clark lowered himself to the seat beside her. Lois slowly tucked in her feet to give him more room, and tried not to stare. She felt not unlike a National Geographic photographer holed up in a camouflaged bungalow trying not to scare off some rare animal. Clark hadn't sought her out like this since the previous day, before the debacle with the photograph.

"Her name's Lana," Clark spoke finally, eyes on the coffee table in front of them, "Lana Lang."

Lois unobtrusively closed the book she had been pretending to read, and raised her eyes to observe him. And she waited. Clark's eyes flickered up to hers briefly.

"We grew up together in Smallville. Her house was near mine, but we didn't really get to know each other until high school. She was very popular, and I was... a bit of an outsider."

Lois raised an eyebrow at this revelation – maybe his penchant for his own company went back farther than she predicted? She restrained the question bubbling up inside her for fear she would stop him talking altogether.

"Eventually we started dating. We were together most of the way through high school."

"Most of the way?"

The question popped out before she could stop it, and she mentally slapped herself. Clark surprised her though by responding after a few seconds.

"We broke up a few times," he elaborated. With a troubled look upon his face, he added, "It was my fault. I was going through some things... and I wasn't honest with her about it."

Lois blinked in surprise – Clark had been to blame? She couldn't believe that. She couldn't see him lying to someone he loved.

"In my senior year, things got better for us. I wasn't –" he stumbled over his sentence, as if he wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to say, "I became someone she could trust. After that we went to the same college, and she moved in with me at the farm. For a long time everything was going well – or at least I thought it was."

Lois cringed; this story was about to get ugly, she knew it.

"A few months after my mother died, I asked her to marry me. I'd been thinking about it for a long time. I didn't have any family left, and Lana only had her Aunt Nell – her parents were killed when she was very young. It seemed like the right time to make our own family."

Clark trailed off and looked as if he might stop there. Lois shifted closer to him and rested a hand on his. Clark said nothing, but turned his hand to take hold of hers. For a moment he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, stalling.

"She said she needed to think about. For a week she didn't say anything about, then she told me she didn't think that was 'the best idea right now'. Two weeks after that she broke up with me, and three months after that she married _him_."

"Oh Clark," Lois said softly. She didn't know what else to say.

Clark's hand tightened around hers, and his free hand formed a white knuckled fist.

"Lex Luthor," Clark pronounced the name as if burnt his tongue.

"Luthor?" Lois echoed to herself, a frown upon her face.

That name sounded almost familiar. She felt as if she should know that name... Something twisted deep in her lost memory, but it slipped away as she tried to catch it. Brushing it off, Lois returned her attention to Clark.

"He was my best friend," Clark said bitterly. "He was several years older than me, but we were alike in some ways. We were both... different. We met when I was in my freshman year. I saved him from drowning."

Clark's face twisted into an ironic smirk as he said this.

"He and his father owned a company called LuthorCorp. He offered me a job there when I was in college, to help with my tuition. Part-time and holidays at first, full-time when I finished my education."

Clark looked at her as he continued in low voice.

"When they got married, I just couldn't be there anymore. I couldn't look at them. I couldn't stand everyone looking at me like I was going to explode at any moment. I couldn't go there every day and continue on like nothing was wrong. So I left. I quit my job, sold the farm and I moved here."

"Oh Clark," Lois found herself repeating, her voice cracking a little.

This was just too awful. She threw her arms around Clark and pulled him into a tight hug, not sure exactly who she was comforting. Clark's heavy arms closed around her, holding her to him as if he would never let go.

Lois decided then and there if she ever happened upon Lana Lang, she was going to kick her ass into the ground. Lex Luthor's too.


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N**: This is the last chapter I'll post until at least the 27th. Merry Christmas everyone!

* * *

**Chapter 7  


* * *

**

"What are you doing?" Clark stopped in the doorway, arms full of firewood.

"Making pancakes," Lois answered, spinning around to face him.

Clark looked around at all the surfaces covered in flour, at the tray of misshapen, half burnt pancakes and then back to Lois.

"Trying to make pancakes," she amended. It wasn't going so well.

When she'd woken up that morning, Clark was outside already – as was the norm; he seemed to rise with the sun. In a fit of independence she'd decided to cook something for herself. It should have been easy – she'd found Clark's recipe book and the ingredients quickly enough – but for some reason she kept getting distracted at key moments. Plus, she seemed to have forgotten to put something in... She wasn't sure exactly what, but the result had been very flat pancakes that burnt way too easily for her liking.

"I don't think cooking's my forte," she admitted, poking despondently at one of her disastrous creations.

Clark couldn't help but grin at the comical picture she made, decked out in one of his old flannelette shirts and a pair of over-sized shorts with her hair tossed up in a messy ponytail. She was as covered in flour as the kitchen bench and floor.

"I could teach you," Clark offered. He was rewarded with a surprised smile from the brunette before him.

"Really? You're willing to risk it?"

"Sure," Clark said, "I'm sure you're not that bad, you just need practice."

"Thank you," Lois responded, smiling up at him.

"... And if you are that bad, there's a fire extinguisher in the pantry," he added mischievously.

"Hey!" Lois whacked him on the arm, insulted. Clark merely ducked, grinning at her.

Lois wasn't really insulted – she was loving this new side of Clark. In the days since he'd opened up to her about Lana and Lex, it was as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He seemed younger – boyish almost . He was laughing more, talking more; even playfully teasing her like he had just done then. Lois wondered if this is what he'd been like before Lana.

Lois almost bit her tongue in surprise when Clark raised a hand to brush her cheek. Clark caught her shocked expression at the intimate gesture, and for a second they both froze.

"You had a bit of flour..." Clark's explanation tapered off as he blushed and hurriedly took his hand back.

"Oh," Lois said dumbly. For a second she thought he might have been going to...

"Um," Clark grabbed the plate of burnt pancakes from the bench and gestured with it, "Ready to start a new batch?"

"Sure," Lois said, trying not imagine what kissing him would be like. "Right."

"Okay," Clark looked relieved, "this time we use the egg powder."

"Damnit," Lois swore, "So _that's_ what I forgot to put in."

++----++

Lois climbed up the last couple of steps of the ladder and into the attic. It had the same high roof as the main room, only here it was close enough to touch. Two triangular windows - one on each side of the roof – let in enough light to see the stacks of boxes and other items stored in the dusty room.

"Where?" she called back to Clark, who was following her up the ladder.

"I'm not sure," Clark answered, clambering up onto the attic floor, "In one of the boxes."

Lois turned back to him, rolling her eyes.

"Could you be any more vague?" she waved her arms at the numerous cardboard containers surrounding her.

Clark just shrugged in response, swiping the dust off the top off one of them and peering inside.

"I haven't looked at most of this stuff since I moved in. I don't even remember half of what's up here."

"Well then, I guess we're going to go with the trial and error approach," Lois said, dropping to the floor and opening the closest box.

"Books," she announced, after shuffling through them to check Clark's long lost Play Station wasn't hiding beneath them.

Clark shifted a box to the floor and opened the one beneath it, shuffling through the contents until he found something that made him chuckle.

"Hey Lois," Clark waited until she turned toward him to toss her the wad of cloth, "For next time you cook."

Lois unfolded the full length apron.

"Very funny Kent," Lois said dryly, and turned back to her mission, "Now keep looking! I want to go to war already."

"Violent," Clark mumbled.

"I heard that!" Lois hurled the balled up garment at his back. Clark just laughed at her.

Lois turned back to her next target. Pulling back the flaps revealed yet another collection of books – Smallville really was a bookworm. She removed a couple from the top layer, and found only another layer of novels. It was just as she went to replace the ones she had removed that she noticed the white corner sticking up between the books and the side of the books.

Pulling out, she found it was a photo. A much younger Clark, smiling and holding a pole cue beside him like a staff. What caught her attention though, was the young man beside him, smirking at the camera. Though surely only 20 or 21, he was completely bald – and Lois recognised him.

"Lex Luthor" she said to herself, a cold feeling coiling in the pit of her stomach. _Lois Lane_, the condescendingly formal voice answered from a fragment of a memory.

Nothing more came. She dropped the photo back in the box, frowning.

"Lois," Clark called her back to herself.

Lois turned to find Clark pulling the game console out of another of the boxes. She smiled back at him, doing her best to brush off the uneasy feeling that had taken up root within her.

"Awesome."

++----++

That night

_Lois was dreaming. _

_Light streamed down from the stained glass windows high above, lighting up the dust motes swirling around in the air. Lois could smell candles and incense and musty old building smell._

_She was in a church, walking down the long aisle. She was just taller than the backs of the pews, so she could see that there was no one sitting in them. That was strange. She had the feeling that was wrong. There should be people in the church. It shouldn't just be her here._

_Her daddy should be in the church, she thought. And Lucy - where was Lucy?_

_Lucy was smaller than her. Small enough to sit in one of the rows and not be seen. Or maybe she was hiding again. Lucy was always hiding. When they went shopping with Mommy, she hid in the clothes racks and giggled. _

_"Lucy?" Lois called out, looking down all the rows and under the seats, one by one. She wished mommy was here. She always knew straight away where Lucy was, even if she pretended she didn't._

'No Lucy here... no Lucy there... no Lucy anywhere! Where oh where can my Lucy-girl be?'_ Lois's mother's voice echoed in her head._

_"Where oh where..." Lois mumbled to herself, as she reached the end of the pews. She turned back and looked sadly at the aisles. No Lucy anywhere._

_She was all alone._

_"Lois," A voice whispered behind her, ever so quietly, "Come here Lois."_

_Lois turned. There was something on the platform in front of the altar that hadn't been there before. A big white box sitting on a wooden frame painted the same colour._

_A coffin._

_Lois suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to leave. She wanted to run away, but something drew her closer. She slowly made her way up to the short flight of stairs in the middle of the platform._

_One step._

_Two steps._

_Three steps._

_Four steps._

_Now she stood on the platform, in front of the coffin. It was the sort that has a lid with two halves, and the top one was open._

_"Lois," she called, her voice rasping breathlessly._

_ A steady 'beep, beep, beep' echoed through the empty building as Lois tremblingly stepped up to the casket. She held her breath as she grasped the handle sticking out from the side and stood on tiptoe to look in._

_Staring back at her was a face thinned to the bone and pale as snow. The oxygen tube across her face emitted a faint hissing noise that almost drowned out her weak voice._

_"Lois," her mother whispered again._

------------

Lois sat up in the bed with a gasp. Her mind churned with a jumbled and confusing storm of memories, as they were suddenly released from wherever it was they had been trapped.


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N**: I ended up practically rewriting this whole chapter because I wasn't happy with the first version. Still not entirely happy with it (especially the ending), but if I keep fiddling with it I'll never put it up. So here goes!

**

* * *

Chapter 8  


* * *

**

Clark woke to the muffled sound of sobbing.

Sitting up on the fold-out bed, he realised it was coming from his room. From Lois. He leapt off the mattress, half tripping over the covers in his haste.

"Lois?" he called softly as he knocked on the door. The sobs staggered off, but there was no reply. Clark opened the door and crept into the room. By the faint stream of moonlight coming in through the window above the bed, Clark could make out Lois's form viciously wiping at her eyes.

"Lois, what's wrong?" Clark asked as he came to sit by her feet.

"Nothing," came the defensive reply.

The rough, croaky sound of her voice gave her away, though; she had clearly been crying.

"Lois," Clark's tone was serious, but Lois remained silent, turning her head away from him as she hugged her blanket-covered knees.

"Lois," Clark tried again, tentatively reaching out to touch her.

Lois stiffened as she felt his hand on her shoulder. She didn't want him to see her crying. She didn't want to cry full stop, but that dream had just gotten to her, along with the renewed knowledge of her mother's death. It was as though she were a little girl again, sitting in that waiting room in front of her grim-faced father, holding Lucy's chubby little hand.

She meant to shrug his hand away, but somehow the shrug morphed into a shake and she found herself beginning to lose control over the tide of tears she was fighting. Clark sensed this and shifted on the bed so he could pull her resisting form into his arms.

"It's okay," Clark comforted quietly, "It's alright."

Lois held out for another few seconds before his gentle words and solid warmth got to her. With a loud sob, she gave into her weak side; leaning into him and allowing him to pull her into his lap as she wept. Clark leaned against the headboard, rubbing his hands up and down her back.

Her head was tucked under his chin, her cheek against his chest. She had covered her face with her hands, but tears still slipped out from under them. Clark spoke to her, but neither of them really noticed what he was saying. After a couple of minutes she ran out of tears. She took in a few deep, uneven breaths, becoming more fully aware of Clark loosely wrapped around her.

"I'm sorry," she breathed and pulled out of his arms before he could stop her.

Putting a hand on his shoulder for balance, she crawled off his lap and sat down on the other side of the bed. She moved quickly, as though she had done something wrong and was afraid of being caught out.

"What happened?" Clark asked, surprised and a little disappointed by her withdrawal.

"Just a bad dream," Lois answered shortly.

Clark waited, but she didn't continue. Clark sat awkwardly on the bed wondering what he should do. It was almost easier when she was crying – holding her had made him feel like he was helping. Now he just felt useless.

"I remembered," Lois broke the awkward silence, "Just now, it came back."

"Everything?"

Lois shook her head.

"I don't know how I got here. I was in Metropolis... " Lois trailed off, trying to put her thoughts into order, "I remember Christmas... sort of..."

"That was over a month ago," Clark informed her.

"I'm still missing a couple of weeks then," Lois said, half to herself.

Missing couple of weeks was much better than missing a couple of decades, but she was still disturbed by the gap. Where had she been? What had she done? How had she ended up concussed and face-down in the snow in some obscure mountain range?

Shoving the fear away, she tried to think logically. The rest of her memory would come back eventually. Probably.

What was that saying? If you're worried about something do something about it, if you can't do anything don't worry about it. Chloe had told her that once. Well, she couldn't find out what had happened to her – at least not yet. Once she was off this mountain - if she hadn't remembered by then – she could do something about it. She was an investigative reporter after all, so investigating her own disappearance shouldn't be a problem.

"Can we pick this up in the morning?" Lois suggested.

She didn't feel like talking just yet, and maybe if they both went back to sleep she could convince Clark she hadn't actually broke down over and cried all over him.

Clark nodded but he didn't get up.

"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked hesitantly.

He almost offered to stay until she fell asleep, but something held him back. He didn't think that would go down well. After all, she barely knew him.

"I'm fine," Lois responded, "Go back to bed and get some more sleep. Sorry I woke you up."

"Don't worry about it," Clark told her.

He left the room slowly, leaving the door open a crack so he'd be able to hear her easily if she woke up again. Lois didn't move from her position sitting against the headboard. She watched Clark leave, and then dropped her head onto her knees, wondering how she'd ever get back to sleep with so much going on in her head.

++----++

Clark was sitting at the kitchen table when Lois emerged from the bedroom. He was surprised to see her up so early – it was only half past seven. He had gotten used to beating her up by several hours.

"Good morning," he greeted her.

"Morning," she answered, padding barefoot into the kitchen and straight to his coffeepot.

Feeling it was still hot; Lois smiled to herself and poured a cup. She took a big gulp of the caffeinated beverage and took a seat next to Clark.

"Lois Joanne Lane," Lois offered her free hand to Clark, who shook it with an amused smile.

"Nice to meet you," Clark responded formally, taking her lead.

"So what do you want to know?" she asked, taking her hand back and wrapping it around her mug with its pair.

"Where are you from?" Clark asked, thinking it was a logical place to start.

"I live in Metropolis at the moment, but I've lived all over – my Dad's in the army, so we moved a lot."

"Is there anyone you need to call?"

Clark had notified the police via his satellite phone the day after he had rescued Lois. They hadn't found any missing person reports matching her description at the time, and had yet to call back as they said they would if anything came up.

"No."

"Your family? They must be worried."

"They won't have missed me."

"Your friends? Your boss?"

"Nope."

"But you've been missing for almost two weeks!"

Clark couldn't believe there wasn't anybody looking for her.

"I'm a single, free lance reporter," Lois told him, "I speak to my father maybe once a year. My sister lives in Europe and I haven't seen her since I was in college. I don't have a roommate, I don't belong to any clubs and I pay my rent three months in advance so I don't forget it. Trust me Clark, nobody has noticed I'm gone, and nobody _will_ notice I'm gone."

Lois spoke in a matter-of-fact logical tone that astounded Clark. How could she be so casual while telling him no one in the world would notice if she dropped off the face of the earth until she missed a rental payment?

"Lois..." Clark tried to think of what to say.

"Don't go feeling sorry for me," Lois warned him, keeping her voice light, "I'm fine with my life. I don't need people breathing down my neck, wanting me to report in every time I go somewhere. It would just cramp my style."

Clark stared incredulously at her as she concentrated on stirring the contents of her mug.

"You're unbelievable," was all he could think to say.

"So I've been told," Lois said, adding a second spoonful of sugar to her coffee.


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N**: Finally! Hope it was worth the wait.

**

* * *

Chapter 9  


* * *

**

Since her memory had returned, Lois had been acting strangely.

She seemed a little uncomfortable – with him or just with the whole situation, he couldn't discern. She'd become more polite; in a stiff uncertain way that told him she wasn't used to living in close quarters with anybody else.

Her new attitude was a marked contrast to that of her first fortnight in the cabin. She had settled in so rapidly and thoroughly then that within a few days it was as though she'd lived there her whole life. He thought now that was because she hadn't been able to remember her own life – and whatever it was that normally kept her from being the person he'd been getting to know.

The old Lois had been easier for him to read; he could tell that she felt vulnerable and confused over her situation, but was doing her best not to act it or even acknowledge her feelings. Instead she had seemed to channel the unwanted emotions into hyperactivity and chatter – it was a curious, bull-headed kind of bravery.

Now, she was more closed off. The word that popped to mind was restrained, only he wasn't entirely sure it was Lois doing the restraining. It was so constant that it seemed to be part of her personality. She still talked a lot, but in a way that seemed to keep him at an arm's length. He'd probably learnt more about her personal life in that first conversation after she recalled her past than in the five days after it.

The new Lois was much more confusing, Clark concluded.

++----++

"Oh no. I think it's a better idea if I just watch," Lois looked alarmed at his suggestion.

"I thought you wanted to learn to cook?" Clark asked.

Clark was hoping if he pushed her just a little, he could get them back to where they were before her memory returned.

After six years of solitude, Lois had turned his comfortable existence upside down with her sarcastic, charming, hilarious company. Somewhere along the way, she'd caused him to remember what it was to really enjoy another person, to want them around all the time. Her withdrawal was hurting him now because he knew what he was missing. He wanted the old Lois back.

"That was before I remembered setting my oven on fire and smoking out my apartment. I'm surprised we survived my attempt at pancakes."

"Well we did, so obviously you aren't that bad," Clark reasoned, privately wondering if her oven really had caught fire, or if she was just exaggerating.

"There's no need to go tempting fate a second time," Lois stated.

"Come on," Clark grabbed the apron he'd brought down from the attic and advanced toward her.

"Uh," Lois back away from him a step, "No, really. I'll just do the dishes."

"Fire extinguisher in the pantry, remember?"

Clark raised the apron, intending to slip it over her head. Lois took the apron from him before he could touch her. Clark did his best to ignore the sting of rejection he felt at her response.

"Fine," she gave in, "But don't blame me when the cabin burns down and we have to sleep in your garage."

"It won't," Clark promised watching Lois tying the apron behind her back. "I won't let it."

++---++

Clark awoke in the middle of night and lay blinking into the darkness, wondering what had woken him.

The cabin was silent and lit only by the soft trickle of moonlight seeping in through windows. Clark sat up on the mattress and rubbed his eyes. He wondered if perhaps Lois had had another nightmare – she wasn't crying, but maybe she had stopped before he woke up properly. He had always been a fairly light sleeper; even more so since he moved to Mount Heather and became accustomed to its silence. It wouldn't have taken much to awaken him.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep until he had made sure she was alright, Clark decided to check on Lois. He walked softly over to the bedroom door, not wanting to disturb her if she was still asleep. Opening the door a little, he looked into the dimly lit room to find the covers thrown back and the bed empty.

"Lois?" he whispered.

There was no reply, so Clark flicked on the light and stepped into the room. He knocked on the bathroom door but she wasn't there either. A little worried now; he doubled back through the main room and checked the kitchen. Finding it as empty as Lois's bed, he checked the pantry and went down the trapdoor to the basement - though he couldn't think what she would be doing down there. Turning on the light revealed only the small washing machine and dryer set that had been left by the previous tenants, and the shelves of supplies he had stockpiled for the winter.

He quickly climbed back up the steep stone steps and through the trapdoor, not bothering to close it before leaving the pantry. If Lois wasn't in the cabin, that meant she must have, for some reason, decided to go outside in the middle of the night – without her coat. The red parka was still hanging on the hook next to his. He pulled on his coat and grabbed his boots, already having visions of finding her face-down in the snow again.

Clark's panic deflated at the sight of Lois sitting on the steps at the far end of the deck, apparently staring at her feet. She was so lost in thought that she didn't seem to have heard him yet. For a second he felt irritated – both at Lois for making him worry, and at himself for giving into panic prematurely.

"Lois," Clark sighed out her name with the breath he had been holding.

She didn't hear him utter her name, but remained hunched up under the hood of one of his sweatshirts. She started with surprise when he lowered himself down beside her.

"Hi," she said after a second.

"Hey," he responded softly "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she responded automatically, return her eyes to the ground.

"Lois..." Clark touched her arm. "What are you doing out here?"

Lois met his eyes reluctantly.

"I'm fine," she said, "Just thinking."

"You must have a lot to think about."

Lois shrugged in response and tucked her hands under her arms.

"Are you cold?" Clark frowned.

"I'm –"

Clark was wrapping his coat around her shoulders before she could complete her sentence.

"Was that a rhetorical question?" Lois asked with an eyebrow lifted at him.

Clark half-smiled and shrugged.

"You looked cold. Do you want to go inside?"

"I like it here," she told him. "I like the cold - it clears my head. Plus the snow smells nice."

"Snow doesn't have a smell."

"It does!" Lois disagreed, "It smells cold and... clean."

"Okay," Clark accepted.

They sat in silence again until asked the question that had been rolling around in his head.

"What was your nightmare about?"

He wasn't sure he'd get an answer, since she hadn't even admitted to having had one, but Lois surprised him.

"My mother's funeral," she told him after a moment's consideration. "Sort of."

"Your mother died too?" Clark felt a burst of empathy for her.

"When I was six. Cancer," Lois confirmed briefly.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a long time ago, I barely even remember her."

"I bet you miss her though," Clark said, sensing the moderation in her response.

Lois focused on the darkness ahead of them. When she spoke again, her voice was so soft she might have been speaking to herself.

"Yeah," Lois admitted, an edge of sadness creeping into her voice. "I do."

Clark slid closer and wrapped an arm around her. Lois leaned silently into his side.

After a couple of minutes he asked if she was ready to go back to bed, she nodded. Clark stood up and offered her his hand. She placed her own in his and allowed him to help her up. They paused for a moment, Clark's hand still wrapped around hers. Lois peered up at him, with a look he couldn't identify.

"Thank you," she said.

Clark felt her hand squeeze his briefly before she slipped it free and headed inside. He followed her in, not entirely sure what she was thanking him for.


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N**: Another short, mostly POV chapter like chapter 4. Consider the extra chapter and the half-naked Clark an apology for the two week wait for chapter 9.

**

* * *

****Chapter 10****

* * *

**

Lois could tell from the soft quality of the light peeking through the curtains that she'd woken early again. Maybe Smallville's sleeping pattern was beginning to rub off on her.

Smallville - Clark Kent – was possibly the strangest guy she had ever come across, and definitely the nicest. She knew that for certain now that her memory had returned from the void, but even before it had she'd had that feeling about Clark. She wondered how sad a statement it was on her psyche that even with her slate wiped clean of every bad experience she'd ever had with the opposite sex she had retained that niggling feeling that the majority of men in the world were jerks. Dr Phil would love that.

She'd had the dream about the church again last night. She'd had that particular dream every now and then since her mother passed away, so she was as used to it as she could be. It hadn't upset her so much this time – she was almost expecting it. After all, it had always tended to come more often when something in her life changed – when she switched schools, broke up with a boyfriend, lost her job... and her current situation definitely qualified as a change from the norm.

Her little breakdown last week had been a complete fluke, the first time anyone had caught her crying in she didn't know how long. The closest she could think of was the day of Chloe's funeral – her father had called to ask if she was coming (she wasn't) and although she hadn't actually cried during the conversation, the unusually soft way her father had spoken to her suggested he could hear in her voice that she had been before she picked up the phone.

Surrendering the idea of falling back to sleep, she dressed and tip toed in sock-covered feet out into the main room. She stopped dead at the sight of Clark's bare back sprawled across the fold out couch. Her eyes immediately and involuntarily skimmed down, appreciating this undeniably well-muscled side of him.

The well-defined dimples at the base of his back had her wondering how on earth he stayed in such good shape - did he bench press the fridge? Have a secret gym hidden in the woods? She mentally slapped herself when her mind shifted to the question of what exactly (if anything) he was wearing under the blankets that covered the rest of him.

Sneaking closer, a childish part of her desperately wished for a feather duster and shaving cream – or maybe a magic marker. This was the first time she'd ever seen him asleep. She'd walked past last night but it was dark then, and she been so wrapped up in her thoughts she doubted she would have noticed the half-naked man on the couch if he'd sat up and thrown a pillow at her.

Clark started to stir. The spirit of mischief driving her, Lois leaned over the bed and whispered in Clark's ear.

"Boo!"

Clark shot up so quickly that Lois jumped back in fright herself, tripped over the blanket trailing on the floor and fell to the ground.

"Ow!" she exclaimed.

"Lois?" Clark's voice was deep from sleeping and he blinked in confusion at Lois sitting on the floor next to his bed, "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Lois answered, standing back up quickly.

"What are you doing up?" Clark asked, rubbing a hand over his face and sliding his legs over the side of the bed to sit facing her. "Did you have another nightmare?"

"No."

She thought she'd gotten away without disturbing him last night, but minutes after she'd settled on the steps outside, Clark had appeared at her side and shocked her back to the present. He had looked worried. It was so strange to find someone was worried about her – and just because she was up in the middle of the night, or because she was cold or unhappy.

It was nice kind of strange, though - even if it did make her feel guilty. She didn't want him feeling bad because of her.

A little bit of that guilt had driven her to answer his question, even though she never spoke about her dreams and especially not that one. It felt at once frightening and liberating to speak those words aloud, to speak about her mother.

Clark hadn't pushed her anymore – it was as though he understood exactly what she needed in that moment was just to sit with him in the darkness and silence for a while. He made her feel so safe, just by wrapping an arm around her and being there. He really was one of a kind.

"You're up early," he commented, glancing up at the clock.

"And you're still in bed, sleepyhead," Lois grinned at him, reaching out to muss up his already ruffled hair.

A bright smile grew upon Clark's face at her playful behaviour.

"Isn't that your rightful title?"

"Not today!" Lois declared, lightly punching his arm. "Now come on Kent; out of bed - I'm hungry and you're cooking."


	12. Chapter 11

**A/N**: Here's the next chapter! Hope it answers a few of your questions

* * *

**Chapter 11  
****

* * *

**

Static.

Static.

More static.

Somebody mumbling through static.

Even more static.

Giving up on the hunt for an intelligible radio station, Lois switched the stereo back on to CD. With an old U2 song now filling the air, Lois flopped on the couch next to Clark, who was engrossed in a paperback novel titled 'A Fortunate Life'.

"No TV signal, no internet, no radio..." Lois mused, "Nuclear war could break out and we wouldn't have a clue."

Clark smiled at Lois comment, glancing sideways at her before returning his attention to his book.

"Hey, Smallville, did you ever watch Jericho?" Lois interrupted after about five seconds.

"Hmm?" Clark looked up.

"Jericho. The TV show. Ever see it? Or was that after you went all 'Into the Wild'?"

"I think I remember it."

"Well it would be like that. The first we'd know of a war would be the mushroom clouds on the horizon."

"I guess it would be," Clark responded, "But I think that's highly unlikely."

"It could happen."

"Anything can happen," Clark quoted before returning to his novel.

Lois sat humming along to 'Pride' for a few minutes before standing up. Clark tried to concentrate on the words before his eyes, but he was frequently distracted by the brunette wandering around the cabin. She'd start humming again, move in the corner of his eye or step on a creaky floorboard and instantly his attention would be on her.

He'd only managed to progress about four pages when he heard Lois stop moving and take a breath. He turned to look at her, anticipating another question.

"What did you want to be when you were a little kid?" Lois asked without preamble.

Clark wondered just how she'd gone from nuclear warfare to childhood ambitions. He would love to be able to read her mind.

"Ummm..." Clark thought for a second, "I think I wanted to be a doctor. Or a farmer; like my dad."

"Of course you did," Lois grinned at his answer.

"Why did you ask?"

"I'm making conversation for the sake of making conversation. Don't tell me you've forgotten that lowland custom already, Mr I-Don't-Like-To-Play-With-Others," Lois said with a smile that took the sting out of her teasing words.

"Oh." Clark had been hoping for a more informative answer.

"Ball's in your court now Smallville," Lois said pointedly, returning to her seat at Clark's side.

"What?" Clark blinked, wondering if he'd missed something.

"I asked you something, you answered," Lois said slowly. "The next step is you continuing the conversation."

"I know how to converse, Lois," Clark said drily

"Well go on, Show me those mad skills!" Lois widened her eyes and prompted him with a pen she had picked up from his desk while she was wandering.

"Did you always want to be a reporter?"

"God no! I was going to be a marine," Lois told him, shaking her head.

"Really?" Clark wasn't expecting that – but then, he never was expecting anything Lois said or did.

"What can I say? I was a budding feminist," Lois shrugged. "And I _did_ grow up on a series of army bases. Plenty of military role models."

"How did you get into journalism then?"

"My cousin Chloe loved it. She used to drag me off as her sidekick to investigate stories for this paper she used to edit. I hated it at first, but it grew on me. Somehow I ended up liking it, started a course in journalism. Next thing I know, I'm working with Chlo at The Daily Planet."

Lois felt a pang of pain speaking of her Chloe. She'd gotten over the stage where the very mention of her cousin's name caused her to break down years ago, but she didn't know that she could ever stop missing the cousin who was more like a sister to her than Lucy was. Pushing the memories away she focused on Clark, hoping he wouldn't ask her about Chloe. Luckily, his attention had been drawn by something else.

"The Daily Planet?"

Clark may have practically lived under a rock for the last few years, but even he knew that the Daily Planet was a big deal in the journalism world.

"Yeah. Started out in the basement and quite literally worked my way up," Lois told him, looking very proud of herself.

"I thought you said you worked free lance?"

"I got fired," Lois admitted, "that's why I work free lance."

"Why? What happened?"

"They wanted me to back off a story," Lois shrugged. "I didn't."

"What was the story about?"

"Uh..." Lois looked conflicted, "I don't know if I should tell you."

"What?" Clark's interest was piqued at this mysterious evasion.

"... And now I've gone and told you I'm not sure I should tell you, you're not going to let it go. Why do I always get myself into these situations?" Lois buried her face in her hands. "Ugh!"

"Lois, why don't you want to tell me?"

"I'm not sure how you're going to take this..." Lois mumbled.

"Why would one of your stories bother me?" Clark looked mystified.

"Uh..." Lois stalled, looking anywhere but at him.

"What? Is it about me or something?"

"Or something."

Lois really didn't want to talk about this. She'd sooner tell him about Chloe – at least that story didn't have the potential to make her look like a stalker.

"Lois?" Clark prompted.

"I was investigating LuthorCorp," Lois admitted reluctantly.

"Why would the Daily Planet fire you over a story about Luthorcorp?" Clark looked puzzled.

"LuthorCorp bought a controlling share of the Planet last year. Lex _really_ didn't want his dirty laundry aired."

"Dirty laundry? What exactly were you investigating?"

"Lex Luthor's criminal activities."

Clark's eyes widened.

"What do you mean? Lex isn't a criminal."

Lois blinked at him – she was stunned.

"Wait. You're defending him?! I thought you hated him!"

"No," Clark started then shook his head, "I mean – However I feel about him personally... He was my best friend, and I worked with him for years. He may be a little harsh in his business dealings sometimes, but I never knew him to do anything criminal."

"How can you be so reasonable?" Lois asked incredulously. "The guy walked all over you, stole your girlfriend out from under you and had the gall to expect you just accept it – he's hardly a nice person, even ignoring his criminal activities."

"Lex wanted to be a better person than his father was. He – "

"That's the exact same bull he feeds the public – charity balls and pro bono projects to cover up the fact he's actually the condescending, two-faced, prodigal son of Satan!" Lois jumped up from the couch and interrupted explosively.

Clark was shocked at the show of anger.

"I _know_ it's true! I just haven't been able to prove it yet – no one is willing to go on the record against the guy who practically _owns _Metropolis PD, and knows how to cover his tracks."

Clark just stared at her – he'd never seen her get so worked up about something. Quite frankly, she was more than a little intimidating when she was this furious.

"Oh crap," Lois said, clapping her hands over her mouth. "This is exactly what I was afraid of."

"What is?" Clark asked.

"Me saying the wrong thing to you about Lex and you getting angry at me," Lois said, slouching back onto the couch.

"I'm not angry."

"You're not talking to me."

"I'm talking to you right now."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm not angry at you Lois. I'm just a little shocked."

"I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have got so worked up about the whole thing... I just can't help it, he makes me so angry. I shouldn't have even brought it up."

Lois shook her head at her behaviour.

"Lois, I'm _really _not angry at you," Clark repeated. "Maybe you're right about Lex. After all, it's already been proven that I don't know him as well as I thought I did."

Lois lifted her head and turned to him, and saw that he really meant what he was saying. Her relief was painted clearly upon her face.

"Good," Lois wrapped her arms around Clark's neck spontaneously, "Because if you aren't talking to me, I don't have a back up, and that could be really awkward since we're stuck together for another three weeks."

Surprised by the gesture, Clark took a moment to return the embrace. Cautiously he splayed his hands across her back, taking in the feeling of Lois in his arms. He didn't get much of a chance though as Lois had just realised what she was doing.

"Ah, sorry," Lois said, smiling nervously and pulling away. "Impulse."

Clark's arms had yet to catch up with this turn of events and release their hold, so they found themselves separated by only a few inches. Clark's hands were pressed to Lois's back and her hands were awkwardly resting on Clark's upper arms.

The smile faded from Lois's face and her eyes dropped against her will to Clark's lips. She forced them back up to his eyes and hoped he hadn't noticed her brief lapse.

"Uh," Clark responded, releasing her slowly, "Don't worry about it."

Lois sat back down on the couch. Both were a little shocked by the charged moment they'd just shared, but neither of them were ready to acknowledge it.

Lois broke the eye contact, and jumped up.

"I feel like coffee. Do you want coffee?" Lois asked.

"Sure," Clark responded to her already retreating back.


	13. Chapter 12

**A/N**: You wouldn't think it, but I actually had to do research for this chapter - about snow. We don't get the stuff where I'm from. Anyway, I hope you like the chapter. ;-D

* * *

**Chapter 12**

* * *

Dark clouds bloomed in the sky and the wind was picking up. Clark could tell a storm was coming, and probably a big one. He'd already stocked up on firewood and made sure nothing was left outside on the deck, and now was heading back inside the cabin before it started to snow.

Clark closed the door behind him and kicked off his boots. Hanging up his coat, he heard a shriek. He turned just in time to see something falling from above him. Reflexively, he reached out his arms and caught it – or rather _her_. Clark stared at the woman in his arms. Lois had landed with one arm around his neck and her free hand was clenched around a fistful of his shirt. She looked just as shocked as Clark felt.

"Nice catch," Lois breathed out when she could talk, her heart still beating rapidly.

When she'd lost her footing on the narrow wall top she'd been expecting to hit the ground pretty hard and was wincing mid air in anticipation of broken bones or at least some very ugly bruises. Finding herself quite comfortably nestled in Clark's arms instead of plastered to the kitchen floor was a very welcome surprise.

Clark looked up at the pantry wall from which Lois had fallen and then back to her startled face.

"Should I even ask?" Clark asked, sensing he might find this funny at some point in the future when he wasn't preoccupied with imagining what would have happened to Lois if he hadn't caught her.

"There's a hole in your wall."

"A hole," Clark repeated, not understanding at all. He stood frozen with his arms full of Lois trying to see how a hole in his wall could possibly lead to Lois almost breaking her neck falling off his pantry. He drew a blank and stared at Lois – what exactly went on behind those hazel eyes of hers?

"The wind keeps blowing through it and it makes this really annoying whistling noise," Lois explained, relaxing her death grip on his flannel shirt.

"But... why were you on the pantry?"

"Your pantry doesn't have a ceiling," Lois pointed out.

"No it doesn't..." Clark said slowly, looking up at it.

"So I climbed up the shelves and stood on the wall to reach the hole so I could plug it up with blue tack," Lois continued.

"Oh." _Of course_, Clark thought.

"You can put me down now," Lois said.

"Right," Clark said, and returned the utterly baffling woman to the ground. "Haven't you heard of ladders? There's one in the basement."

Lois made a dismissive 'pfft' noise.

"Pantry was easier," she threw over her shoulder as she walked into the kitchen area.

"To fall off," Clark interjected.

"Only because you startled me," Lois told him, "And besides, people fall off ladders far more often than they fall off pantries."

"Wouldn't that be because very few people climb up pantries to fall off in the first place?"

Lois ignored his question and pointed upwards.

"Well, I plugged the stupid hole didn't I?"

Clark followed the direction indicated by her finger to a small wad of blue tack stuck to the wall about two metres higher than the pantry and a metre to the right. No wonder Lois had fallen – she must have had to lean right out to reach the crack that was frustrating her so.  
Clark shook his head. She was going to get herself killed one day.

Lois jumped up to sit next to the sink and peered out the window the dark grey clouds that filled the sky.

"How much do you think it'll snow?" Lois asked turning back to him

Clark glanced over her shoulder and shrugged.

"Five or six inches, maybe more. Depends how fast it's moving."

Lois face lit up at his prediction.

"You know what this means?"

"What?" Clark was already suspicious of the mischievous look upon Lois face.

"We are sooo having a snowball fight tomorrow," Lois informed him with childlike glee.

Clark laughed at her eager expression.

"You like snow?"

"Half the places we got stationed at didn't even get snow. Let me tell you, there's nothing like a few years of rainy winters to make you appreciate the magic of a healthy snowfall," Lois told him.

A sudden strong gust of wind loudly shook the window directly behind Lois. Lois jumped off the counter and bumped straight into Clark's chest. Clark took the opportunity and hugged her to himself.

"It's just the wind," he said, laughing at her.

"I know!" Lois snapped looking up at him.

"Then why'd you jump?" he asked.

"Because it was loud and right behind me and I wasn't expecting it!" Lois answered tensely.

"Aww... did Lois get a fright?" Clark teased, cuddling her closer against him.

Lois made an inarticulate, but clearly angry noise into his chest. Clark thought she probably would have tried to hit him if her arms weren't pinned down between them. He waited a few seconds to release her, until the tautness dissipated from her frame. Lois stepped back against the counter, her face slightly flushed.

"Don't you like storms?" he asked, dropping his previous teasing tone.

"I'm fine with them as long as they aren't breaking windows directly behind me," Lois stated quietly.

Clark brushed a couple of fingers across her cheek. Lois's eyes shot up to meet his.

"Okay," Clark accepted.

When he stepped away, Lois couldn't decide whether she was more relieved or disappointed.

Clark emerged from the shower rubbing the towel over his head full of wet hair. He walked over to the bed and reached for the clothes he'd laid out. Through the closed door he could hear Elvis Presley crooning. Lois must have put it on. As he pulled his shirt on he realised he could hear something else.

"Baby, don't say don't. Don't... Don't..." Lois's voice became much clearer when he cracked open the door.

Lois was swaying about the room in time to the song she was singing softly along with.

He smiled at the sight and watched her quietly until her movements brought her around to face him. Her mouth snapped shut mid-lyric and she froze.

"Uh... hi," she said, clearly embarrassed at being caught out.

"Don't stop on my account," Clark smiled from the doorway. "You're pretty good."

Lois flushed red at the compliment and crossed her arms over her chest, clearly not willing to continue now that she was aware she had an audience. Clark shook his head and, smiling at her reticence, walked up to her and took hold of her right hand and pulled out from under her left arm.

"Come on," Clark coaxed.

Lois stared first at him and then, pointedly at their entwined hands.

"What are you doing with my hand?"

"_We_ are dancing," Clark informed her as he placed his hand on Lois waist and pulled her towards him.

Lois looked a little apprehensive, but she put her hand on his shoulder and followed him when he started to step.

_When the night grows cold and I want to hold you,  
Baby, don't say don't. Baby don't say don't._

Clark raised the hand holding Lois's to slowly twirl her around.

_If you think that this is just a game  
I'm playing  
If you think that I don't mean  
Ev'ry word I'm saying  
Don't, don't  
Don't feel that way  
I'm your love and yours I will stay_

Clark smiled down at her as they moved together.

_This you can believe  
I will never leave you  
Heaven knows I won't  
Baby, don't say don't..._

They stilled as the song came to its end. Lois stood looking up at him, biting her lip.

"What is it?" Clark asked in a soft voice.

Lois said nothing but, keeping her eyes on him, she slid her hand from his and ever so slowly brought both hands up to his face. Her gaze dropped to his lips as she leaned towards him, bringing their lips together. Clark closed his eyes and fell into the kiss, both the hand that still rested on her waist and the one that felt so cold with Lois's worked to bring her closer and deepen the kiss.

* * *

_**The next morning**_

"Lois, gloves!" Clark called out.

Lois huffed and stepped back over the threshold.

"Yes sir, Mr Mom, sir," Lois saluted, grabbing the gloves he held out to her.

She pulled the left glove on and fastened the strap around her wrist. She fumbled its partner onto her right hand but couldn't quite manage the strap with her fingers lost in the oversized glove. After a couple of frustrated seconds she thrust her hand in Clark's direction.

"Help," Lois instructed.

Clark smiled and did as he was told. When he was finished he pulled Lois towards him and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. A sweet smile bloomed on Lois's face as he pulled away.

"Would it be too childish of us to make a snow fort?" he whispered to her conspiratorially.

Lois beamed both at his suggestion and at the lingering feel of his kiss.

"I won't tell if you won't!"

* * *

**A/N:** :-D The lyrics in italics are part of Don't by Elvis Presley - currently getting a lot of replay on my mp3.


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N**: This chapter moves the plot along a bit more than the fluff-fest that was chapter 12. Hope you enjoy it!

**

* * *

****Chapter 13****

* * *

**

The calendar was pinned to the wall next to Clark's desk. He had this habit of crossing the days off. Lois guessed it was because of how easy it was to lose track of time up here. It wasn't like he could check the date on the newspaper. She'd noticed the calendar on her second day here, and she glanced at it every now and then, but it hadn't really drawn her attention until now.

February 15th, said the calendar.

She'd forgotten it was coming, had been too distracted by Clark and... whatever it was that they were doing.

They hadn't named it yet. Neither one of them had even spoken about what was between them. They just went on as before - except now there was kissing. Lois didn't say anything because it was too new, too fragile for her to risk jinxing it. Clark, she suspected, was just being his usual considerate self and following her lead.

Looking back, Lois couldn't find an exact moment when this thing between her and Clark had begun. It was too easy to say it began when she kissed him, because things had been happening before that.

She'd been attracted to him from the start. As she'd gotten to know him, she'd developed a... well it wasn't even really a crush at first, not in the traditional sense of the word. It was more than that - a genuine admiration of him as a person. She wished she was more like him, that people she knew were more like him. She'd never felt that way about a guy. But then, she'd never met Clark Kent before either.

Somewhere along the line though, her feelings had taken a leap. Before she had felt flushed half the time because he was just so _ridiculously_ attractive and charming, and here she was stuck in a cabin with him. Later, there was still that, but also this queer, almost sickening feeling that threw her off balance when he said good morning to her and smiled that blindingly beautiful smile at her.

And there was the other feeling - the one that she didn't dare examine too closely. Every so often, when she was talking to him, or watching him, or even just thinking about him, Lois would get this rush of emotion so strong it just blew every thought out of her head. That feeling made Lois want to run away from him, because it was so pure, so powerful it might just destroy her.

Lois realised she was staring at the calendar. She tore her eyes away from the paper and its incomplete pattern of red Xs and continued to the bedroom. She grabbed her misplaced jacket and pulled it on, her thoughts drifting.

Chloe was a year younger than Lois. The year Lois was nine and Chloe was eight, Lois had had a growth spurt; the kind that leaves you lanky limbed and bumping your head on things you used to walk right under without a thought. Lois had always been taller (would always be taller) but that was the first year she had found herself tilting her head down to meet her cousin's eyes. She was so little – her baby cousin. And now she was gone.

Trying not to let the sadness get to her, Lois shook her head and forced a smile onto her face as she stepped through the door Clark was holding open for her. She knew from experience if she dwelt too long upon her feelings about the loss of her beloved cousin, she'd summon up a fresh stab of that old grief.

She followed Clark as he checked the orange snow depth markers that stood amongst the trees at various spots. Clark was chatting to her – explaining something about measurements and forecasting. She was only half-listening to him, as the other half of her mind was occupied with consciously _not_ thinking about how this was the day that her cousin had 'rolled' her car turning on a straight road.

She was glad Clark was feeling talkative today. His voice was doing a wonderful job of cheering her up – auditory sunshine if ever she'd heard it. Ever since she'd kissed him he had been practically floating with levity. She couldn't believe that he was ever friends with Lex Luthor – they were complete opposites.

_"Lois Lane." Lex greeted her cordially. "I was so sorry to hear of your cousin's accident."_

_Lois was filled with a hand-shaking fury at Luthor's words. How dare he speak of her cousin? How dare he pretend civility when Chloe's death was only good news to him?_

_"It wasn't an accident. You know that." Lois voiced seethed with barely controlled fury at the man she knew in her heart had something to do with Chloe's demise._

_"I assure you, I don't," Lex said smoothly. There was the barest hint of a threat as he added more quietly, "Ms Lane, I hope you aren't letting your grief drive you to wild accusations." _

_ She wanted to hit him, to scream at him, to expose his true nature to the scores of people at this ridiculous party - but in that moment she could do nothing but hope the pure hatred streaming out of her eyes might actually bore a hole through that odious visage of his. _

_Before she could control her rage enough to form a sentence, the murderer excused himself – he had to go speak to a colleague across the room. _

Lois wasn't naive enough to believe that Chloe's death wasn't related to her investigations into Lex Luthor. She must have gotten too close to something.

Lois hadn't realised the extent of Chloe's investigation until she'd gone through Chloe's computer after her death, but Chloe _had_ mentioned her suspicions of LuthorCorp's activities, had told Lois she was checking up on them. If only Lois had stopped her then, told her it was too dangerous – she might still be alive.

Lois inwardly flinched. There was that stab of grief she had been trying to avoid.

Lois was not traditionally a cuddler in relationships. She didn't subscribe to that school of cootchy-coo cuteness – but she was finding that she didn't mind Clark tucking her head under his chin and enfolding her in his arms for minutes at a time. In fact, she kind of wanted him too. It made her feel safe, and right now she really needed to feel safe.

Lois was certain all she needed to do to get a hug would be to tap him on the shoulder and open her arms. Clark had already proven himself to be very affectionate – she'd been hugged and kissed more in the last two days than she probably had been in the whole of last year. He probably wouldn't even question the reason for it.

"Lois?" Clark prompted, turning to see why she wasn't replying.

"Huh?" Lois realised she must been asked a question that required more than an 'mmhmm' response.

"What's wrong?" Clark asked, frowning. "You're so quiet this morning."

"Nothing's wrong. I'm just thinking."

"Are you sure?" Clark prodded.

"Really, I'm fine," Lois reiterated.

"I don't trust you when you say that. Usually when you say you're fine, you're anything _but _fine," Clark frowned at her again."You seem sad," he said, scrutinising her.

Oh, god. He was worrying about her again. She could just _feel_ his anxiety. Lois sighed – she was going to have to tell him, whether she felt like talking about it or not.

"You remember my cousin, Chloe?" Lois asked.

"The one who got you into journalism?"

Lois nodded.

"She died," Lois told him. "Five years ago today."

"Oh Lois," Clark immediately pulled her into the hug she'd been wanting. "I'm sorry."

Lois leaned into Clark and wrapped her arms around his waist, just revelling in the comfort he exuded. She couldn't picture this happening back home; not with any of the guys she knew, none of the men she'd dated.

It was just so easy to be with Clark. None of their interactions felt awkward or forced. She was surprised how much she wanted to be close to him, how much she got out of a simple hug.

"Why didn't you say something?" Clark murmured over her shoulder.

"I don't like to talk about it."

"I understand that," Clark said, rocking her slightly side-to-side.

Lois stayed where she was for another minute before she pulled back.

"You think I'd be used to it by now," she said in an attempt at dark humour. "I lose everyone, one way or another."

"Don't say that," Clark said, taking her by the arms.

"Why not? It's true," Lois pointed out, the sarcasm slipping from her voice.

"It's not true." Clark insisted, "You won't lose me. I won't let you."

"But I'm leaving!" Lois said, "In two weeks, I've got to go back. I'll lose you then."

Lois knew that was going to hurt – she'd let him get too close, let herself get too attached – but she couldn't stay here. She couldn't. She had to finish what she had started when she carried on Chloe's investigation. She couldn't let her cousin down again.

"No," Clark said firmly. "You can stay here. Or I'll come with you. It's not the end."

"You'd come with me?"

For some reason, the possibility of Clark leaving the mountain, accompanying her back to the real world hadn't occurred to her.

"If you let me," Clark said, and then a little less confidently, "If you want me to, I mean."

"I want you to," Lois agreed immediately. "Of course I want you to."

Even if this was just delaying the inevitable, she needed to try. She needed Clark.

"Good," Clark said. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips before pulling her into a hug so tight her feet left the ground. "Because I don't what I'd do without you anymore."


	15. Chapter 14

**A/N**: First of all, sorry for breaking my unofficial once-a-week update pattern (though I have warned that I'm not normally the most reliable updater) and secondly, sorry for this chapter. I'm not really happy with it, but I think if I spent in longer trying to make it better I'd lose the thread of this story. So here it is, and now I'm free to move on to chapter 15, which will hopefully be better than its predecessor.

* * *

**Chapter 14**

Clark took a moment to just take in the scene before him. Lois was curled up on his couch, thumbing through his old psychology textbook, looking amused at whatever she was reading.

It was like a dream, he thought. She had asked him if he would come with her, her voice clearly surprised. She didn't understand that there was no other option for him now; he _needed _her. He had made a space for her in his heart, a space that would become a painfully empty hollow if he were to lose her now.

It had only been a few days since he had asked Lois to dance with him, not knowing what it would lead to. He didn't know where his sudden boldness had come from, but he had just wanted to hold her, and dancing was about as good an excuse as he was likely to get any time soon. So he had pulled her close and thanked his lucky stars that she hadn't just laughed him down.

And then Lois had kissed him. Clark had taken a second to understand it was actually happening. Her lips were on his, her fingers exploring the hair at the base of his neck – and that was real, not just some sort of hallucination.

She had made the first move. That meant they could be something, that she wanted them to be something. Clark had taken the kiss as a green light to go ahead and shower her with affection. There were dozens of little things that made her irresistible – and they were all the more powerful to him now that she was no longer off limits.

The cautious – almost fearful – look that she had displayed before she kissed him and still displayed sometimes when he moved to fast - did something she wasn't expecting - told him that she had had some bad experience with relationships. He could tell she was afraid he might hurt her (and god, that made him want to hurt whoever had made her expect that). Her uncertainty and vulnerability just fed his desire to shower her with love and affection.

Every time she frowned, he wanted to kiss it away. Every time she laughed he wanted to hug her. It was as if he had been storing up the love he hadn't been making use of in the last few years, bottling it up like a water balloon, and now he'd been given an outlet – Lois.

For all that for all that Lois acted tough, she was a scared little girl when it came to relationships, so he kept in mind that it would be better to take it slow. He didn't want to rush her into something she was unsure of. He didn't want to rush himself into this either – he too knew what it felt like to have his heart broken. The thought of Lana and their failed relationship still hurt him, but he was finding it much easier not to think of it with Lois around.

He initiated most of the contact but Lois never seemed to mind – in fact, every time he kissed her, an affectionate smile sprouted up in its wake. And a few times he had started to ease off on a hug, thinking he had held her for too long, only to have Lois's arms subtly tighten around his waist to tell him she wasn't finished with him yet.

Lois never acknowledged these exchanges aloud – she accepted the contact and then almost acted as if nothing had happened. She reminded Clark of a farmer not acknowledging the sound of rain pounding down on their roof in a drought, for fear of scaring it away.

Clark took a seat on the couch next to Lois. She watched him out of the corner of her eye and smiled. When he was settled, she shifted closer to lean on him. Clark lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"These people are twisted," Lois commented to him, "Some of these experiments are just plain creepy."

Clark agreed. They sat together for a few minutes, before Clark spoke again.

"Lois, why don't you talk to your dad?" Clark asked impulsively.

He'd been wondering about it for a while, but didn't really know why he was asking now. Maybe Lois's curiosity was rubbing off on him.

Lois screwed up her face at him.

"Actually, with the small talk thing, you're actually supposed to ask about trivial things," She pointed out.

"Sorry," Clark said, backpedalling. "I shouldn't have asked. I just – "

"No, it's alright," Lois sighed, "And I do talk to the General - just not very often," she corrected. After a pause she added, "We had a fight a while ago, and since then we just..."

Lois trailed off and shrugged.

"What was your fight about?"

"Lucy's less than legal hobbies," Lois answered, shaking her head.

"What?" Clark was confused. What did Lois's little sister have to do with it?

"After my mom died, he didn't really know what to do with us. I was the older sister and the General... well, he was the General - so I looked after Lucy. And according to the rules of the chain of command, that means her mistakes are my mistakes. Lucy stayed up late, I got grounded; Lucy dropped out of school and disappeared in Europe, I pretty much got disowned."

"That seems harsh," Clark frowned at the thought.

"Yeah, well it was pretty much mutual," Lois muttered.

"How old were you when your mother died?"

"Six. Lucy had just turned three."

"Six?" Clark asked incredulously, "You were six and you were raising a three year old?"

Lois shrugged.

"You do what you've got to do."

"Fathers expect too much sometimes," Clark said.

He knew that from experience. While Jonathon had been the ideal father; thoroughly supportive and loving, the contact he had had with Jor-El had been a very different experience.

Clark realised Lois was giving him that look again – the one that said that he had roused her rabid curiosity.

"My father - my biological father – contacted me when I was a teenager. He wanted me to be something... and I just couldn't do it," Clark told her.

"It didn't end well?" Lois guessed.

Clark shook his head negatively.

"I... disappointed him, to put it lightly. He and I never spoke again. I wonder now if I made the wrong decision. Maybe I should have taken the chance he offered me."

"What chance?" Lois asked.

"The chance to make a difference; to make the world a better place," Clark said, thinking of the things he could once do, of what he might have done with them if had taken a different path.

"Why would you give that up?" Lois frowned at him, confused.

Clark shrugged.

"When I was younger, I didn't see it the way I see it now. I only saw what it would cost me; what I couldn't have, couldn't do. I didn't want to be some kind of hero – I just want to be normal."

Lois looked as if she understood.

"You can still make a difference, you know. There's more than one way."

"You think so?" Clark asked

"I know so," Lois said firmly, slipping her hand into his, "And anyway, you already are a hero."

"No I'm not," Clark shook his head. Heroes didn't turn away from their destiny like he had, didn't run from the world when the going got tough.

"You saved my life," Lois reminded him. "You're my hero."

Clark took in the sincerity in her words and her expression. She believed in him. Maybe she was wrong to, but she did.

"You're mine," Clark said in return.

* * *

Clark opened his eyes in the darkness only a couple of hours after he had fallen asleep to find Lois looking back at him. She was standing next to the fold out in his old football jersey, hugging her arms around herself.

"The bedroom's cold," she mumbled.

Clark examined her face by the flickering light of the low fire. She was lying. He'd bet anything she'd had another nightmare and was too proud to admit it – but apparently not too proud to come seek him out for comfort. Clark decided to ignore her false claim - if that's what she needed to say, she could say it. He didn't mind - he was happy just to be the person she wanted when she was scared.

"Come here," he said sleepily, holding up the covers between them.

Lois took the invitation without a word, sliding across the mattress and into his arms. Clark settled the blankets over them and tucked his arm around her. Lois breathed a sigh of relief that he had fallen for her excuse and relaxed into his warmth, and Clark smiled into the darkness.

Closing his eyes, he thanked whatever had brought Lois into his life.


	16. Chapter 15

**A/N:** This chap isn't very good, just cobbled together from the bits I had written and polished up a little, but I've had a few emails begging me to update, so i thought I better give you something.

* * *

**Chapter 15**

Clark woke before Lois, as usual. She was peacefully asleep on the mattress next to him. One arm lay between them, the tips of her fingers just brushing his chest; as if to make sure he was still there. Clark lay still for a while, quietly committing this sight to memory.

As the sunlight grew brighter, Lois started to stir. With a quiet murmur of irritation, she rolled away from the light, bringing herself closer to Clark. Her hand shifted upwards to lie on the mattress near his chin. Clark's hand took the liberty of pressing her sleepily curled fingers to his lips before he slipped away.

Lois rubbed her eyes and sat up in the unfamiliar bed. She reached out and felt the still warm space beside her.

"Clark?" Lois called out, frowning.

"Just a second," came his reply from the direction of the kitchen.  
Lois twisted around to look over the back of the couch. Clark was making his way back over carefully carrying a pair of steaming mugs.

"Oooh," Lois held out her hands to him as he approached, "Coffee?"

"No, tea," Clark deadpanned.

Lois screwed up her face.

"It's too early for jokes, Smallville."

"Of course it's coffee. You can't function without it," Clark handed over the cup into her eager hands. "Careful, it's hot."

Lois laced her fingers around the mug as Clark settled back onto the bed next to her.

"Mmm..." she murmured appreciatively, closing her eyes and inhaling the rich aroma of her first cup of the day.

There truly was nothing like a good hot cup of coffee on a winter morning. She opened her eyes to find Clark staring at her.

"What?" she asked.

Clark opened his mouth, closed it and then finally answered.

"Nothing," he mumbled before taking a sip of his own coffee.

"Hey, where've you been?" Lois asked Clark as he came through the door later that morning.

"I just went to check the road out," Clark answered, sitting on the bed beside her. "Why, did you miss me?"

Lois rolled her eyes at him.

"I was just wondering where you were. That's all."

Clark smiled.

"The snow's melting quickly this year," he told her, "I think we'll be able to leave the day after tomorrow."

"Score one for global warming!" Lois announced her face lighting up with enthusiasm. "I mean, its beautiful here, but I really want to see a Starbucks, you know what I mean? I want newspapers and live TV and hundreds of people in suits rushing down the streets..."

"You really are a city girl," Clark commented, raising an eyebrow at Lois's ramblings.

"And proud of it," Lois added. "Oh, clothes!"

"What?" Clark didn't know where that had come from.

Lois waved a hand to draw his attention to her baggy outfit.

"First day downhill, I'm hitting the stores," Lois planned, "Because, seriously? The girl wearing her boyfriend's clothes look is okay for a while – but a month and a half straight makes you feel like a hobo."

"Boyfriend's clothes?" Clark echoed, the amusement he was feeling apparent in his tone – had Lois finally slipped?

"Uh," Lois looked flustered.

Clark wasn't her boyfriend... or maybe he was. Or maybe he was something entirely different. 'Boyfriend' evoked memories she'd rather not associate with Clark, so maybe it was better he just stayed Clark – the man she wanted to kiss every five minute and who made her pancakes and brought her coffee when she was curled up on the couch, unwilling to move. She didn't even know how that had come about - they'd simply slid from guest and host to friend-like behaviour to... whatever they were now.

"Not that you are..." Lois trailed off not sure how to respond, "I mean we are –"

"A couple?" Clark suggested playfully.

"I-" Lois realised she wasn't going to be able to avoid this one.

"Well, I guess. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Clark asked stepping towards her.

"Unofficially," Lois swallowed.

"Why unofficially?" Clark asked taking that last step that took him clearly into Lois's personal space.

"Because," Lois struggled to think with Clark this close. God he was tall! "Because we haven't even been on a date... or..."

Clark linked his arms around Lois's waist and looked down at her.

"You want us to go out to dinner?" he asked.

Lois couldn't speak, so she nodded.

"I'll take you anywhere you want to go," Clark promised into her ear.

Lois gulped.

"How about we start with getting me back to sea level?" she suggested, pushing him back.

"Okay," Clark responded cheerfully, "I can do that."

* * *

Lois gripped the seat below her and the handle above the door as they descended a particularly steep section of the four wheel drive track. Clark smiled to himself as he guided them carefully down.

"Shut up," Lois told him.

"What?" Clark smoothed his face, "I didn't say anything."

"But you were thinking it!" she snapped.

"So you're telepathic now?" Clark commented.

Lois glared at him as they lurched over another bump. She was dressed in her own clothes – she'd told him earlier that she'd sooner sweat it out in her snow gear than be seen in public tripping over his sweat pants.

"There's no need to be scared Lois, it's perfectly safe," Clark assured her, serious now.

"I'm not scared," she ground out. "I just don't want to be thrown at the dashboard."

Clark could just feel the irritated look she was giving him. If she wasn't so intent on holding on as they rocked alarmingly over the bumps, he was quite certain she would have punched him.

"Of course."

A few minutes later they were on something Lois actually felt deserved the title of a road, twisting and turning with the shape of the mountain that rose up on their left.

Lois peered out the window down into the valley. From this distance the trees blended together into a carpet of green. Half-hidden by the veil, Lois spotted a large rectangle of what appeared to be made of concrete. A roof?

"What's that down there?" Lois asked.

"Some old army facility," Clark told her, although he couldn't see what she was pointing at – nothing else stood out in the valley besides the river. "Not sure what they used it for but it's abandoned now."

"Huh," Lois said, staring down at it, thinking how angular and unnatural it seemed against it's surroundings.

They arrived in Oyen an hour later, and pulled up near a small motel.

"Hello. We'd like two rooms – adjoining if you have them," Clark requested, smiling politely at the woman behind the desk.

"You're in luck, the skiing season is ending, so we have plenty of vacant rooms," the woman smiled broadly back at Clark while Lois rolled her eyes unnoticed, "Adjoining rooms shouldn't be a problem."

For the first time, the clerk glanced at the woman accompanying Clark. A frown brushed the smile off her round, red-cheeked face. Lois supposed she thought they might be a couple – she was probably thinking that would interfere with her chances of marrying Clark to her eldest daughter, or maybe her own chances of netting the handsome mountain man.

Lois told herself it was merely the desire to protect Clark's honour that drove her to wrap herself around Clark's arm and cuddle against his shoulder. She smiled at the frowning clerk and in her most polite voice.

"Oh, that's lovely. Thank you."

Lois kept her eyes on the flirtatious clerk, but she could just feel Clark grinning down at her. He knew exactly what she was up to, and he loved it.

"Ellen!" said the clerk with surprise, "It's Ellen White, right?"

"Ummm..." Lois looked surprised, "Yes. Do I know you?"

"Ellen?" Clark asked her, confused.

"Later," hushed Lois, squeezing his arm before continuing more loudly, "I'm sorry, I'm suffering from a bit of memory loss – hit my head skiing. Have we met?"

"Really? Oh, how awful!" the clerk exclaimed, "That must be why you left! And here we were thinking you'd just skipped out on your bill."

"I stayed here?" Lois asked, genuinely surprised.

But then of course, she had been in the mountains, and this was the closest town, and a small town at that. It wasn't that unlikely that she'd stumbled across the hotel she'd stayed at during her blank period.

"I'm so sorry. You stayed here for a few days the month before last. You really don't remember?"

Lois shrugged, doing her best to look helpless and confused.

"Sorry, that period is a complete blank to me," she apologised.

"Shall I pay Ellen's bill before we check in?" Clark suggested, holding out a credit card.

"Oh, thank you," smiled the clerk, clearly enraptured by the oblivious farm boy's charm. "You can pay when you check out. I'm sure that would be just fine."

"Thank-you," Clark responded as the woman fluttered around the desk, organising their rooms.

"Here," she smiled at Clark and handed him two key rings. "I'll have one of boys have a look for Ellen's bag while you two settle in."

"I left a bag?" Lois eyes lit up.

"Yes; just a small one. I think we still have it somewhere..." the woman trailed off. "I'll have it sent up to your room as soon as we find it."

"Thank you!" Lois was significantly cheered by the prospect – surely that bag would have at least a change of clothes.

"Ellen White?" Clark asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

"It's one of my aliases – for when I'm undercover," Lois explained.

"Clearly I was investigating something here."

"You're a really good liar," Clark said, surprised.

"I didn't lie... I just glossed over the truth a little."

"Well, you're really good at that then."

"Thank-you," Lois said as they stepped into the elevator, arms still linked. "You didn't do so bad yourself."


	17. Chapter 16

**A/N:** Longest chapter I have ever written! :-D Hope you like it.

**

* * *

Chapter 16

* * *

**

Clad in her own jeans and sneakers and a shirt she hadn't been wearing for a month straight, Lois felt like herself again.

The bag she had left at the hotel turned out to be her old assignment duffle, which she had last seen crumpled at the bottom of her wardrobe under some of her shoes. Inside it had been a couple of changes of clothes, a pair of sneakers, her wallet (including her Ellen White ID) and toiletries. In the side pockets she'd uncovered half a pack of chewing gum, a notepad, several pens and a map of Oyen that appeared to have come from the information stand in the lobby.

The notepad had a couple of flight numbers and times, the details of the hotel and a few random doodles. Lois cursed herself for not writing down anything useful – none of this explained why she had come here, or what she had intending to do.

One thing Lois hadn't found was her phone. She had a sinking feeling that it was short-circuiting in a pile of snow somewhere at the bottom of Mt Heather.

Clark had called the airline at the hotel while Lois had been examining the contents of her recently returned bag and booked them for the next flight to Metropolis, tomorrow afternoon.

Afterwards, she and Clark set off on a walk around Oyen, partly to try and jog Lois's memory and partly to fill in time. Oyen seemed to be a typical small highland town, catering to the snow sports crowd in the winter and hikers in the summer, with gift shops galore.

They'd seen a few people who appeared to be tourists, but most of the people they had encountered were the local residents, identified by their disinterest in the many gift shops and apparent immunity to the cold.

"I feel like a display window," Lois commented, as yet another lightly-clad pair of women glanced at them and whispered to each other.

Ever since they'd left the hotel the locals had been staring at them. Lois was half expecting one of them to take out a camera and start taking candid shots as they approached the hotel.

"That's what you get for being an amnesiac tourist in a small town," Clark shrugged. "They'll be talking about you for years now."

"I bet they talk about you too, J.D. Salinger," Lois quipped.

"Tell me something I don't know," Clark chuckled.

"Okay," Lois grinned, "Agatha is desperately in love with you."

"The receptionist at the hotel?" Clark raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"Yup," Lois nodded.

"She's at least sixty," Clark scoffed.

"She's old, Clark, not blind," Lois said looking Clark up and down to emphasise her point.

"Lois!" Clark was blushing.

"Oh don't worry Clarkie – if she tries to make a move, I'll protect you," Lois promised, playfully hitting Clark's arm.

As they entered the lobby, Clark was still trying to decide if Lois was kidding.

"Hello Mr Kent," Agatha called out to him enthusiastically, as soon as she caught sight of them.

"Hello Agatha," Clark responded automatically.

"See," Lois yanked his sleeve and whispered, "She only has eyes for you. Doesn't even know I'm alive."

"You're crazy," Clark said, shaking his head as they stepped into the elevator.

---+++---

The next morning they checked out - to Agatha's disappointment - and drove for almost an hour to get to the airport.

Half an hour into the flight, Clark was sitting stiffly next to Lois, staring at the seat in front of him. Lois had thought he'd looked a little overwhelmed in the airport, but she'd put it down to today being his first time in a crowded place in the better part of a decade. Now however, she was starting to think there was something else behind Clark's behaviour.

From the moment they'd stepped on the plane, Clark had been as tense as a well strung bow. When the plane had hit a spot of turbulence a few minutes before, he'd looked ready to snap.

"Clark," Lois said casually, "Are you scared of flying?"

"No," Clark denied.

Lois looked pointedly at his white knuckles on the armrest between them.

"Are you _sure_?" Lois prompted.

"Maybe I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of being trapped in a twenty tonne metal cylinder thousands of feet above the ground," Clark admitted.

Lois rolled her eyes.

"You could have just said so," she said, prying his hand from the armrest and squeezing it with her own.

Clark gave her a weak smile in response.

"You know, statistically speaking, this is safer than driving a car," Lois added.

Clark laughed shortly, his eyes locked on their entwined hands.

"I'd still feel better if I was behind the wheel."

"You've just got to distract yourself," Lois said, "Think about something else."

"I'm trying. I can't think of anything."

"Agatha," Lois said suddenly.

"What?"

"Did you notice that she touched your hand when she said goodbye?" Lois asked Clark.

"That proves nothing. Why are we talking about Agatha?"

"I'm distracting you," Lois told him. "Is it helping?"

"A little," Clark noticed when she asked.

"Only a little? I'll have to try harder," Lois declared. "See that man over there?"

Lois nodded her head towards a man in a dark suit across the aisle and a couple of rows ahead of them..

"What do you think he does for a living?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Guess!" Lois instructed.

Clark looked at them man for a minute, taking in the neatly cut hair and the generic mystery novel in his hands.

"I don't know... insurance salesman?" Clark shrugged uncertainly.

"That's boring, try again."

Clark struggled to think of something.

"A doctor?"

"Better," Lois nodded. "Why is he on the plane?"

Clark blinked in confusion.

"Is this some sort of game?"

"Yes," Lois confirmed, "Keep playing. Why is he going to Metropolis?"

"Umm..." Clark floundered. "I don't know, what do you think?"

"He's moving to Metropolis to open a Chinese restaurant," Lois answered with absolute confidence.

"Why would he do that?" Clark asked, amused by Lois's story.

"Because he had a nervous breakdown after accidentally putting a patient in a coma," Lois answered. "What kind of doctor is he?"

"A... Dermatologist!" Clark answered, finally getting the hang of it. "How did he put his patient in a coma?"

"Aaah..." Lois looked stumped for a second, before answering triumphantly; "He dropped at tube of cortisone cream - she tripped on it, fell into the fishtank and nearly drowned."

The flight attendant passed by with a disapproving look on her face as both Lois and Clark cracked up laughing.

With twenty minutes to go before they landed, they hit a bad pocket of turbulence and Clark once again found himself visualising the plane going down, bursting into flames and raining down on the countryside below.

Lois took one look at the pallor of Clark's face and squeezed his hand tight.

"Clark, hey, look at me," Lois asked softly.

Clark turned to face her, and the second that he did, Lois hooked her free hand behind his neck and pulled him into a passionate kiss.

Clark's world was reduced to the sensation of Lois's lips sliding over his, her fingers threading through his hair, the soft fabric of her shirt under his own finger tips and the heat of her skin beneath it. And then, Lois was pulling back.

"Okay," Lois asked, "Are you still worried about the plane?"

"Plane?" Clark asked, perplexed. Why had she stopped?

His mind was paused on the moment Lois's lips had first touched his – he hadn't even noticed that the turbulence had ended.

"There we go!" Lois grinned. "I think I found the perfect way to keep you distracted for the last – " She glanced at her watch, " – twenty minutes."

Clark suddenly found himself wishing this was a longer flight.

----++++-----

They took a taxi to Lois's apartment. The streets of Metropolis blurred together into an amalgam of concrete, towering skyscrapers and pedestrians rushing along the pavement. Clark had forgotten what it was like in cities, the reality of six million people crammed in together.

"Oh, home!" Lois said looking up at the crummy apartment building. "I never thought I'd be glad to see you, but absence really does make the heart grow fonder."

Lois led Clark, who was carrying both their bags, into the building and up to the third floor. Lois made a beeline for a glass fronted fire axe cabinet across from her unit. Slipping her fingers behind it (one edge had come away from the wall a little) she pulled out a key which she promptly used to open her door.

"Interesting hiding place," Clark commented as he followed Lois in.

He put the bags down and closed the door while Lois continued into the apartment.

"Whoops," he heard her call from one of the rooms, "I left the bathroom light on."

Walking towards her voice, Clark came to the kitchen. Lois came through a door to his right.

"I wonder how many Earth Hours it will take to atone for that one?" Lois joked as she yanked open the fridge.

"Oh – ewww," Lois pronounced, her face screwed up in disgust as the wave of smell hit her. "Sweet Jesus, that's _foul_," she choked, waving her free hand in front of her face, trying to dissipate the odour of mould and rancid foodstuffs.

"Well," Clark said, peeking over her shoulder at the multicoloured forest of fungi, "That does tend to happen after a few weeks."

Lois almost slammed the door shut, but then she realised she was going to have to clean it out sooner or later – and later was just going to give the advantage to the mould army.

With a resigned huff, Lois pulled a large rubbish bag from one of her drawers and began to extract the rotting food and dump it in the black plastic bag, with Clark's help. They worked silently for a couple of minutes, until Clark spotted something on one of the lower door shelves.

"Lois, look at this!" Clark exclaimed, holding up the plastic jug of what was once milk.

Lois eyed the blown-up bottle dangling from Clark's finger tips. It was curdled into two distinct layers, one of which resembled cheese, and neither of which Lois had any desire to smell.

"Don't you DARE drop that in the bag," Lois warned.

"Drop it?" Clark repeated, mischief sparkling in his eyes.

"Don't," Lois said seriously.

Clark experimentally hefted the container, as if to throw it to her. Lois's hands shot up to protect her, though she knew he was only kidding.

"Clark!" Lois snapped. "Not funny."

Clark ducked his head apologetically and went to set it safely down on the bench next to the fridge.

Unfortunately the condensation on the handle made it slippery – and it slipped right out of Clark's hands. It bumped the edge of the counter and went spiralling to the ground.

As it landed, the cap burst off, skittering away under the kitchen table and out of sight.

Simultaneously a gush of the yellowish whey squirted out of the pressurised bottle, directly at Lois.

Lois closed her eyes for second, clenching her fists tightly. She was wet from chest to ankle; her right thigh had taken the brunt of the hit and was thoroughly soaked with putrid-smelling liquid.

Clark gulped and waited.

For a moment she didn't speak – when she did, her voice was low and utterly dangerous.

"Clark," Lois said, her "I'm going to have shower. You are going to clean this up. And when I come back, I'm going to kill you."

Lois stalked off through the kitchen door, leaving Clark to wonder if it was fury that made her sound so serious, or if she actually was intending to murder him.

"Lois," he called after, "You know I didn't mean to-"

Clark was cut off by the slap of Lois wet jeans against his face.


	18. Chapter 17

** Chapter 17**

* * *

**_Lois's point of view_**

The roomy was cloudy with steam from her shower – her own, wonderful, tiny shower. Truth be told, the one in the cabin had been better, but this one was _hers_.

She'd been away so long she'd almost forgotten what her apartment was like (well, for while there she really _had _forgotten it) but as soon as she had stepped over her threshold, it felt like she'd never left. It was like pulling on your winter coat on the first freezing day of the year. Back here among her own things, in her own city, she fit like a hand in a glove.

The time she had spent on Mt Heather could almost have been a dream – if the main character of that dream wasn't currently mopping her kitchen floor. Lois smiled involuntarily.

Wait, no! She was supposed to be angry at him. And she _was_ – just the thought of the stench of befouled milk made her want scrub herself all over again. Unfortunately, Clark was very difficult to stay mad at.

She spent a couple more minutes luxuriating in the hot shower stream before reluctantly turning it off and reaching for her towel.

By the time Lois returned to the kitchen in a clean outfit Clark had not only cleaned up the floor, but he had also emptied and cleaned her fridge.

Clark pointed in the direction of the laundry.

"Your jeans are in the dryer," he informed her

Lois's jaw dropped.

"You did my laundry?"

"I didn't look, I swear, just emptied the basket in and turned it on," Clark answered quickly and to Lois amusement, put both hands up where she could see them as if she was pointing a gun at him.

Lois had the sudden urge to kiss him (which really was not unusual at this point). He couldn't be more adorable if tried.

"Geez Smallville! At ease! I'm not going to hurt you because you did my chores without asking," Lois said with a grin.

Clark smiled and then spoke.

"I should go."

"Go?" Lois parroted blankly. _Go where?_

"I don't want to be checking in too late at the hotel," Clark said apologetically.

"The hotel," Lois echoed.

"Yes," Clark said, "I mean, I assumed that, you know... so I booked a room when I was getting the tickets."

"Oh," Lois responded, "Right. Of course. Good idea – trust me, you do not want to sleep on my couch. I know park benches that make more comfortable beds."

_What were you thinking Lois? _She mentally scolded herself - _Of course he's staying at a hotel. He _should _stay at a hotel. We've only known each other a few weeks!_

Lois knew better than to rush things – rushing lead to big ugly messes, and Lois really didn't need another one of those in her life. Lois was hit again by that sickening feeling she'd been having every so often; like the ground was dropping out from under her and there was nothing under the hands she threw out to save herself. She knew she had let herself get attached to Clark very quickly – too quickly. It was a big risk, and she was already too far in to take it back. Lois wasn't normally this reckless when it came to relationships. Sure she'd dated more than one guy she really shouldn't have... but that had always been safe. She'd always held back the part of her she was too scared to risk having hurt.

Clark looked around and spotted a notepad on her table. Grabbing the pen beside it, he wrote down the room number and name of the hotel he was staying at. He ripped of the page and handed it to her.

"In case you need me," he said, "Otherwise I'll come over tomorrow?"

He said it like a question that needed an answer. Lois supposed it did, now that they were back in the real world, where people got to know each other before they moved in together.

Lois took the piece of paper and forced a smile.

"Thanks," she said. "And, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."

It was a good thing Clark was slowing them down, Lois told herself. They had already moved way too far in the short amount of time they'd know each other.

She followed Clark to the door, and watched him scoop up his bag. She told him she'd escort him downstairs to protect him from the muggers, wondering self-consciously if he knew she just wanted to delay the separation. He didn't call her on it though, just chuckled at her jibe good-naturedly.

"Well, go on Smallville," she told him as he hesitated after putting his bag in the backseat of the taxi, "Meter's running."

The longer they stood there, the more Lois realised how awfully attached she was to him and what an idiot she was for thinking she could do this. The sooner he left, the sooner she could stop pretending she was perfectly okay with him leaving her for the first time since she'd met him.

And then his arms were wrapped tightly around her, pressing her against the comforting solidity of his chest. All her doubts about their relationship melted away with the familiar warmth of his hug. Everything made complete sense. She rested her head against him and hugged him in return.

He released her after a few seconds, pressing his lips to hers briefly.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he promised.

Lois let out a breath.

"See ya," she said lightly. "Don't be too friendly to the receptionist this time, I don't want to have to come rescue you from another adoring fan."

Clark chuckled as he got into the taxi.

"I'll try."

* * *

**_Late that evening_**

Clark started at the loud banging on his door.

"Coming!" he called, turning off the television and getting up.

He opened the door and instantly Lois was pushing her way past him carrying a laptop bag and her coat.

"Lois!" Clark smiled at her. "What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"No, I found something on my computer," Lois informed him, ripping open the velcro on the laptop bag as she headed for the sofa.

"How did you get past security?" Clark asked curiously.

"Investigative reporter," Lois answered briefly, dropping the bag on the floor and opening up her computer. "Do you have coffee?"

"I can order some," Clark said, and reached for the phone.

"Great!" Lois perked up, "Did you know that even _coffee _can go off?"

"I think I had heard that somewhere," Clark replied, before asking room service to bring up coffee.

After he hung up the phone he asked Lois what she had found.

"I'll show you," Lois said, gesturing for him join her on the sofa. "Just let me get it open."

Clark sat own beside her and peered at the screen as she scrolled through the contents of a folder.

"What's that?" Clark said pointing a file titled ''.

"Nothing," Lois answered, rapidly skimming past the document in question.

"You're writing a book? You never mentioned that."

"No self respecting news reporter writes fiction," Lois scoffed, a barely perceptible blush spreading across her cheeks. "We deal with _facts_."

"Right," Clark humoured her.

"Here it is!" Lois declared triumphantly, as she opened a folder. "I copied the files from Chloe's computer after she died, but some of them were encrypted. _Seriously _encrypted – I've never been able to get into them, and neither have any of the people I've shown them to."

Lois clicked on one of the files and brought up a Word document.

"This file was one of them, except now it's not encrypted."

"Did you do it?"

"I seriously doubt it Clark, I'm technologically competent, but not a genius like Chloe. Best I can figure, I found someone who was."

Clark skimmed the document.

"This is about LutherCorp," Clark said, pointing at the screen, "That's the name of one of the research units."

"I know," Lois responded, "Chloe was investigating LuthorCorp's activities. This file has details of all the major subdivisions of the company, financial details, that sort of thing."

"Do you think this has something to do with what you were doing at Mt Heather?" Clark asked.

"I think so. I can't see the connection yet, but I haven't had a chance to sift through all this information. Maybe LuthorCorp has something going on there, and I found out about it?" Lois wondered aloud.

"We'll figure it out," Clark promised.

Lois smiled at him and continued reading the decrypted files.

A mere half hour later, Lois's head drooped slowly onto Clark's shoulder as her exhaustion finally caught up with her. Clark caught her computer as began to slip from her lap, closed it and quietly placed it on the table, next to her now cold coffee. Lois shifted in her sleep, turning into his side. Clark smoothed a hand over the fingers that rested on his chest.

He could hear traffic in the streets below and a siren in the distance reminding him of the many thousands of people surrounding him. He was once again in the fast-paced world he had once called home. He'd sold the apartment he'd shared with Lana years ago when he first decided not to come back. It hadn't felt like home without her in it. He still owned the farm that had been his first home; his true home. He couldn't bear to sell the place that had meant so much to his father; that he and his mother had fought to keep after his father's death.

Lois's hand curled under his to sleepily grasp his shirt, bringing a soft smile to Clark's face. She was the reason he was here today, but she wasn't the only thing that had brought him back to this place. For six years he had hidden from this world and its many problems, but he couldn't hide forever - it was time for Clark to face the things he had been avoiding and start living again. He couldn't spend his whole life being broken.


	19. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18 **

Lois pushed another pin into the large map of the USA on the wall behind her computer. Each one of them marked a site controlled by LuthorCorp Industries, either directly or through a subsidiary. She'd used yellow pins for those that Chloe seemed to pay special attention to in her research, red for those she had personally linked to illegal activities, black for all the others. LuthorCorp Plaza was the fattest red tack Lois could find of course, as it was Lex's headquarters. A second map to the left showed LuthorCorp's international holdings.

It had taken her the better part of a week to filter through and cross reference the information in Chloe's files – some of the facilities she had mentioned had been closed down or converted for different uses, but much of it was still valid. Lois took a step back to survey the final product, and chill ran down her spine. The sheer number of pins spread across the two maps, level of power that corresponded to was frightening. There was an obvious cluster in Kansas, where the company had been born, but there were many more pins in almost every state and on every continent across the globe. LuthorCorp reminded her of some sort of insidious disease spreading across the planet, infesting all it could reach.

Most of Chloe's yellow pins were part of the main cluster in Kansas. Lois hadn't been able to find anything obvious that linked the sites together – at first glance it seemed like they were a random sample of LuthorCorps interests. Among them were medical research laboratories, factories, mechanical engineering facilities and even a casino. Unfortunately none of the files Lois had access to had directly stated what Chloe was looking for. Maybe this information was in the other files, or maybe Chloe had kept the most sensitive details of her investigations elsewhere.

There was no mention of Mt Heather in Chloe's files, to Lois's great frustration. She had even made her own (admittedly amateur) attempts at prying information out of the internet and found no connection between LuthorCorp and Mt Heather or Oyen or anything else in that area. There had to be a link somewhere though. Lois knew herself; she would not have been investigating anything else when she finally had access to Chloe's files, and had a chance at taking down Lex Luthor.

Lois touched the yellow pins, one by one. Something had drawn Chloe to these places, something that Lex Luthor would kill to keep under wraps. Lois was willing to bet it was something that she could use to destroy him. Even if she couldn't prove that Lex had been involved in her cousin's death, she would have justice. She would see to it that Lex Luthor was put away for life.

A hand closed on her shoulder and Lois reacted instinctively, grabbing the hand and spinning around to land a kick in the man's middle, knocking him backwards. He fell to the ground heavily with a startled "oof" - he had not been prepared for the kick. Lois's eyes widened when she saw Clark staring up at her from the floor.

"Sorry!" she apologised, rushing to help him up, "I didn't know it was you!"

Clark accepted her hand and stood up with a bemused expression.

"Who did you think it was?" Clark asked, rubbing his abdomen.

"I don't know. Not you," Lois face was flushed with embarrassment, "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine. That was quite a kick, though."

"Well, that's what you get for sneaking up on a third-degree black belt."

Clark raised his eyebrows at this.

"You left the door open! And a black belt? Really?"

"My Dad is a General, Clark," Lois said with a note of pride, "Lucy and I learnt how to defend ourselves before we learnt how to multiply."

"Good," Clark said with grin, "You seem to have a knack for getting into trouble, I'm glad you have a way of getting out of it."

"Hey!" Lois said, mock-offended, "I'll have you know I'm a very cautious person. I always think things through and never act rashly."

Clark frowned and leaned forward, staring intensely at her.

"What?" Lois asked, confused at Clark's sudden seriousness.

"Lois… I don't know how to tell you this… but your nose just grew a quarter of an inch."

Lois touched her nose instinctively before leaping forwards and landing a retaliatory punch on his arm.

"Ow!" Clark protested.

"Baby," Lois scoffed, "I barely touched you."

"But you're a black belt; that makes your hands lethal weapons," Clark argued jokingly. "Assault with a deadly weapon is felony, Lois."

"Not if you never get to report it…" Lois responded with a devilish glint in her eye, before she pounced again.

This time, however, Clark caught her by the wrist and deftly spun her around into a restraining hold to curtail the tackle. Lois gave an involuntary gasp of surprise at this unexpected turn of events. He was holding the wrist he'd grabbed her by across her chest and had trapped her other arm by grabbing her elbow with his opposite hand. The fluidity of the manoeuvre suggested it was well-practiced, and he had used her own momentum against her in a way that she recognised from her own lessons. Experimentally, she attempted to break free, but found his deceptively gentle grip was quite solid – he definitely had her beat in the brawn department.

"You're not so tough," Clark said softly, his lips brushing against her ear.

"And apparently not the only one with some moves," Lois responded a little breathlessly.

Clark chuckled and pressed a gentle kiss to her head.

"Nope," he agreed cheerfully.

Lois's lips curved into a smile and she relaxed back against him.

"You only got me because I was off guard," she informed him.

"I know."

Her eyes fluttered closed as Clark's hold morphed into a hug.

"So…" Clark trailed, swaying them slowly.

"So…" echoed Lois; her voice was soft and calm to his ears.

"Plotting a road trip?" Clark asked, looking at the maps she had put up.

Lois shook her head, eyes still closed.

"It's LuthorCorp."

Clark stepped closer, taking Lois with him. Peering more carefully at the board, Clark looked for.

"Ah, I see. This is the plaza," he tapped the red thumb tack, "There's the main lab in Metropolis, the Plant in Granville. They've expanded…"

Clark trailed off as Lois twisted half around to look up at him oddly.

"What? I used to work for them," Clark reminded her

"I know. I just hadn't really thought about it," Lois screwed up her nose at him, "I can't picture you as a LuthorCorp man."

"It was a long time ago," Clark said, still examining the map. "What's the colour code?"

"Oh. Yellow and red are the 'interesting' ones," Lois summarised. "The ones Chloe was investigating are yellow."

"Smallville is yellow," Clark mused aloud.

"Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. There's a fertiliser factory there, but I can't find much on it. Can you think of any reason why Chloe might have been interested in it?"

"That was Lex's first solo project. I met him when he moved down to take over management of the plant," Clark paused, his mind on old memories.

"I don't suppose you ever stumbled across a money laundering business in the basement?" Lois asked hopefully.

"No," Clark laughed at her eager expression. "Not that I recall."

Lois sighed.

"He never makes it easy," she muttered to herself, staring at the map.

A long moment of silence followed, in which Clark could almost hear the cogs turning in Lois's head, producing a plan.

"What?" Clark asked. "What are you thinking?"

"Never hurts to start at the beginning," Lois murmured. Clark wasn't sure if she was responding to him or merely thinking aloud.

Lois shifted her focus back to him.

"Sounds like a road-trip is in order after all."

* * *

**A/N:** Apologies to anyone who knows anything about martial arts, as you can probably tell my only experience with it comes from watching various movies and an older sibling using me to practice throws.


	20. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

* * *

Clark loosely gripped the steering wheel as he drove the rental car down a long straight stretch of highway that was taking them to his home town. The scenery flying by his window was becoming more and more familiar as he drew closer to his destination. This was one of the roads he had learned to drive on, the fields passing by belonged to families he had known since childhood, and whose children he had gone to school with. He hadn't been sure he was ready for this when Lois had decided she wanted to launch her investigation in Smallville, but now that he was here, it felt good to be going home.

Lois was fiddling with the car's radio, trying to find a station that suited her musical tastes. The station she'd picked when she first commandeered the device at the beginning of the trip had lost reception, and she was having trouble finding a suitable replacement. She frowned at the dial as she sped through several channels that were a bit staticky before pausing on a clear signal.

"… and that was 'Still Circling' by The Sunny Cowgirls. Coming up next–"

Lois cut spun the dial before the announcer could get another word out, pulling a face that made Clark smirk in amusement. Three stations later, Lois hit a station playing a rock song heavily laden with power cords and sat back in her seat to drum along with her fingers on her thigh.

"Happy?" Clark questioned.

"Mmmhmm," Lois murmured positively; her eyes closed as she listened intently, "This is gold."

Clark continued to watch Lois out of the corner of his eye. As the song faded out, her hands stilled. He could tell she was thinking about her investigation again by the slight frown on between her brows. He was growing used to this cycle now; Lois put on her thinking face, and shortly thereafter burst out in with a rapidly delivered speech. She bounced ideas in his direction faster than he could respond to them, sometimes stopping halfway through a sentence to answer herself. Clark suspected Lois normally had these conversations with a mirror.

"What are you laughing at?" Lois asked in response to Clark's chuckle, though her eyes were still closed and her mind obviously still whirring away.

"Nothing," Clark responded, schooling his face into an expression of innocence, "Just the radio."

"Hmm," Lois acknowledged vaguely.

Clark snuck a glance at the beautiful brunette strapped into the passenger seat. He adored this woman. Every time she smiled at him, he was left breathless by the rush of affection he felt towards her. Another reason he had to be glad for this trip was that it gave him an opportunity to spend more time with Lois – his hotel room had felt quite lonely after five weeks of having her within hearing distance, even if he was still seeing her every day.

It was when he was alone at night that he was most vulnerable to his own doubts. Without Lois to distract him, he found himself questioning whether coming back to this place was really wise, if the reasons that had caused him to abandon this life didn't still exist. He felt a rising sense of panic lying alone in the dark, listening to the noise of the city that seemed so much louder when he was trying to sleep. He worried about running into old friends, and the questions they might ask him. He worried that he was to too damaged, too much of failure to ever live like a normal person again.

But then it was morning, and he went to meet Lois. As soon as he was in her presence, or listening to her talk, he felt incredibly calm and happy. Somehow she reassured him without even trying, and his problems didn't felt quite so overwhelming.

"Luthor must have been doing something there," Lois broke the silence suddenly.

"Where?" Clark asked, not having the benefit of being able to read her mind.

"That retired army outpost. It's the only building in the area for miles, there's nothing else that I could possibly been there for," Lois clarified.

"But I thought you said it didn't have any links to LuthorCorp?"

"So far. He's probably hidden the connection somehow, wouldn't be hard for a man with as much power as Lex Luthor to do. And if there were guards there to run me off, there must have been something to guard."

"You think you were caught?" Clark tried to keep up with Lois's reasoning.

"It would explain the being left for dead part," Lois answered lightly. "They only try to kill you when a dead body is less trouble than a live story."

Clark gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles whitening from the tension.

"_Kill_ _you_?" Clark parroted.

"It does seem the most likely scenario. And not a first for them," Lois noted wryly.

"They've tried to kill you _before_?" Clark twisted his upper body around to face her before remembering he had to keep his eyes on the road.

"Well, not me personally, but other people," Lois screwed up her nose in thought, "Though there was that time I was undercover in Suicide Slums with the drug dealer's lackey and then that mugger when I…."

Lois trailed off when she caught the horrified look Clark was giving her.

"Oh," Lois responded, "Don't worry Smallville, it's not a big deal, I can hold my own.

"People trying to kill you is very much a big deal," Clark cut her off.

"They haven't got me yet," Lois pointed out. "And I know to keep a low profile. I mean, I wasn't exactly hoisting flags over my apartment in Metropolis and now we're in _Smallville _so really–"

"_Please_ be careful, Lois," Clark begged in a pained voice.

"'Careful' is not what wins Pulitzers."

Clark sighed in exasperation. She was joking. She could not seriously be put an award ahead of her personal safety, could she?

"I'm pretty sure they don't award them posthumously, Lois." Clark pointed out and stared at her firmly.

"Ok, ok!" Lois put her hands up in mock surrender, "I will try not to get myself killed. Promise."

Clark gave her sceptical look.

"I _promise,_" she emphasised. She maintained eye contact until Clark turned his attention back to the road., at which point she added under her breath "… Mom."

Clark rolled his eyes and continued driving.

* * *

Before long, they were rolling through Smallville's main street. They passed a hardware store, an old cinema, A small supermarket and a bakery. It looked vaguely familiar, Lois supposed, because it looked like every other small town she'd been to.

"So this is where you grew up, huh?"

Clark nodded.

"So did my Dad, and my grandparents, and my great grandparents. The Kents have been In Smallville for about as long as there has been a Smallville."

"Weird. I don't think we ever even spent a full year in one place when I was growing up," Lois commented. "What do kids even do for fun in a place like this? Tip cows?"

Clark laughed at her suggestion.

"Well, I spent a lot of time helping out on the farm. We used to hang out at the lake in summer… and there are the local football games. Oh, and the corn festival."

"A CORN festival?" Lois slitted her eyes at him dubiously.

"Yes," Clark responded with a perfectly neutral visage, "Every year at harvest time. It's the event of the year!"

"You're kidding."

Clark shook his head with a genuine grin adorning his lips.

"Does it involve blood sacrifices?" Lois joked. "That's the big draw isn't it? You sacrifice all the adults and bury them in the cornfields right?"

"No, of course not," Clark deadpanned. "The nude rain dance is far more popular."

"Liar!" Lois laughed at him.

Clark laughed along with her as they continued along, waving politely at the few cars driving past. They were almost on their way out of town when he noticed Lois peering around at the surroundings intensely.

"Clark…" Lois asked suddenly, "Is there a park around here somewhere?"

Clark nodded, "Yeah, just a couple of blocks away. Why do you ask?"

"I just… thought there would be one." Lois answered vaguely. "Hey. Hey, stop the car."

Clark pulled over to the side of the road, looking confused.

"What-?"

Lois stepped out of the car and looked around for a few seconds, then started walking up the pavement.

"Lois?" Clark jumped out of the vehicle and followed her. "Where are you going?"

"I'm not sure. I think…" Lois trailed off as she got to the end of the street.

She placed a hand on a red painted mailbox that was shaped like a house. She frowned at it and her surroundings.

"Clark, I think I've been here before," Lois said sounding confused.

"When were you here?" asked Clark as she led him around the corner and kept walking.

"I don't remember," Lois frowned, examining both sides of the street as she walked.

She turned right after a pause at the next intersection, still looking at the houses. She stopped suddenly in front of a rundown house with a peeling white picket fence and over grown lawn.

"I couldn't see over this fence," Lois mumbled.

"You know this house?" Clark asked, growing more and more confused by Lois's behaviour.

Lois dropped to her knees beside the fence and peered through the gaps. She nodded in response.

"I was here when I was little, I think. We wanted to see a witch."

Clark looked blank for a minute, and then surprised.

"You mean the Mrs Pendergast? She's in a nursing home now, but the kids around here used to call her the Smallville witch. How did you know about her?"

"Chloe told me," Lois said, as if it was just occurring to her. She turned around looked across the street and, after a moment's pause, pointed to a light blue house two houses down. "Choe used to live there."

"Your cousin lived in Smallville?"

"I guess so," Lois said, crossing the street. "A long time ago."

She reached the house she had pointed out and stared at it, thinking.

"Chloe was born in Halstead, and they lived in Metropolis when my mother died… They must have been here at some point in-between."

"You must have been quite young, to not remember it."

Lois shrugged. "I don't remember much from when I was a kid."

The stood silently in front of the house for about a minute before Lois shook herself from her reverie and made a suggestion.

"We should get going."

Clark watched as they walked back to the car, trying to figure out what she was thinking. She was doing her best not show her emotions, but Clark could tell she had been affected by this unexpected reminder. Lois had a habit of bottling things up.

They buckled up and Clark started the engine.

"You must miss them," Clark said, after he pulled back onto the road.

"Who?" Lois asked.

"Your family," Clark clarified, "Lucy and your dad."

Lois kept her face turned toward the window, ostensibly observing the scenery as the passed through the outskirts of Smallville and back into the rural landscape. Clark thought at first she wasn't going to acknowledge the subject he had raised, but then she gave a slight nod.

"Yeah," Lois whispered to her reflection in the window, "I miss them."

"You could call them," Clark suggested carefully, not sure if he was pushing it too far or not; family was a touchy subject with Lois. "I'm sure they miss you too."

Lois shrugged and kept her gaze pinned on the blurring landscape outside her window. Clark dropped the topic and neither spoke until Clark announced they had reached their destination.

"Here we are," he said as they drove under a wooden sign that read: 'Kent Farm'.

"Farm, sweet farm," Lois quipped, as they pulled up in front of the pale yellow farmhouse.


	21. Chapter 20

**Author's note:** So... I know you all probably thought I was dead, but I'm not. I was attempting to write the rest of this story in one go and post it all up at once when it was done, but clearly that didn't work. What I'm trying to do now is to stop being pathologically perfectionistic, and just post whatever I have finished as soon as I finish it and hope the momentum keeps me going. I figure anything is better than leaving LaHA unfinished, so here we go again!

* * *

**Chapter 20**

Clark climbed up the wooden slat staircase, some of the steps creaking under his weight. The smell of old straw and machinery oil filled the air, and for the first time in years, Clark felt at home. 'The Fortress' his father had dubbed it, when Clark was small and fond of pretending he was the king of a hay bale castle. When he grew older and more prone to quiet, lonely moods, it became his 'Fortress of Solitude'.

He reached the landing and stepped into the loft. Clark had spent many an afternoon writing and drawing at the dusty, old desk in the corner, or reading on the ugly brown two seater couch his mother had happily banished from the house when one of the legs broke. His old telescope was packed away in a box against the wall behind it; exactly where a younger, angrier Clark had shoved it when he'd decided he was better off focusing things that were more attainable.

Clark walked across the floor to the window and opened the shutters his father had constructed. The early morning sun spilled in, making visible the dust spinning around in the air. He looked out over the cornfields that were now grown by the farm's overseer and the workers he had hired to keep the place going in his absence. The view was as familiar to him as the back of his hand, despite all the time he had spent away.

Almost without his permission, his left hand trailed down the window side, across a wooden strut and behind another that crossed over it. His finger tips delved into the shadows and brushed over a piece of cold, hard metal that was as smooth as ice - it was still there.

After a second's hesitation, he grasped the edge of the hexagonal disc and pulled it from its hiding place. He stared out the window as his fingertips skimmed over the engraved characters, mouthing the words as he traced them.

"There you are!" Lois's voice broke the silence, accompanied by her thudding footsteps as she bounced up the stairs, "Clark, could you give me a ride into town?"

Clark slipped the disc into his pocket before turning to smile at the brunette as she approached him, looking around the loft as she came.

"Of course, Lois," Clark told her, snagging her wrist and pulling her into a good morning kiss.

Lois's hands wrapped around his waist as she eagerly returned the greeting. They broke the kiss and Lois tucked her head under Clark's chin and relaxed into him.

"What do you want for breakfast"

"Coffee," she mumbled into his shirt.

"You've had coffee," Clark said confidently - Lois wouldn't be bouncing up the staircase at seven in the morning without caffeine, no matter how important the project.

"More coffee."

"Okay," Clark chuckled, running his fingers through her hair. "More coffee."


	22. Chapter 21

**A/N: **I can't say I'm really happy with this chapter, but I've decided that if I don't keep pushing through, this story will never be finished. So I'm going to post it quickly now before I can chicken out!

* * *

**Chapter 21**

* * *

Clark dropped Lois off at the town hall, where she was planning on doing some research in the records room. He'd walked with her into the lobby and pointed her in the right direction. He could see a spark coming out in her – she obviously loved a good mystery hunt. She'd given him a kiss goodbye and rushed off to tackle the Smallville's microfiche library.

He left the hall and found himself standing on the street of the town that he'd known so well as a childhood. From the sidewalk outside the town hall, he could see the butcher's shop, the local supermarket, the hardware store where his father had brought him to buy nails for the go-cart they'd built together when he was nine. There was the Talon – where Lana had worked as a barista when they were teenagers. Everywhere he looked, memories jumped out at him.

And suddenly it was too much. He could see people looking at him, recognising him, thinking they knew who he was. He had get out of there. Clark jumped back in the car and turned the key to the ignition. Before he even realised what he was doing, he was headed out of town, and then he was turning on the road to the caves. The metal disc weighed heavily in his pocket as he drew nearer.

He parked off the road a short distance from the cave entrance and walked the rest of the way. He came to the fence erected by LuthorCorp, and followed it towards the tree-line until he came to a spot where the fence was broken.

He squeezed through the gap and made his way through the overgrown grass to the cave entrance. Once inside, he slid to the ground with sigh and gazed up at the paintings that covered the walls of the cavern. He pulled out the disc from his pocket and flipped it over in his hands for a while, lost in thought.

A while later - he didn't know how long – he rose from his seat on the cold hard stone floor and headed for the concealed antrum of cave. He headed to altar and slid the disc into its' slot before he could think better of it.

When he arrived, the cold of the fortress bit at him in a way it never had before. He shivered under the inadequate jacket he had donned that morning, in the darkness of the empty fortress. The silence was so complete that his footsteps echoing off the crystalline walls sounded like an aberration.

He didn't know what he had expected. He knew his birth father would not be waiting for him. He stayed only briefly, the unwelcoming silence broken only by his memory of his father's final words to him.

"If you refuse to follow the path I have set out for you, there is nothing more my guidance can achieve. You must find your own destiny."


	23. Chapter 22

**A/N:** And here's another one; I'm trying to push through this as fast as I can. This is the first chapter where I'm writing the investigation side of things in a very long time - hopefully I haven't forgotten anything major!

Edit: Thanks to spiritedghost who suggested the last line, much better! :-)

* * *

**Chapter 22**

* * *

When he picked Lois up from Smallville later in the day, she was bursting with news gleaned from her researching session. First of all, she had found the original blueprint of Granville plant. When he queried how she'd managed to find that, she'd merely given him a mischievous look and said only that she 'had many talents'.

She'd then proceeded to criticise some of Smallville's cultural traditions and the inordinate amount of newspaper space devoted to festivals and debutante balls. The Smallville Gazette, she contended, should have spent fewer words on the details of the prom queen's dress style, and actually investigated some of mysterious deaths that had occurred over the last couple of decades.

"Chloe would have been all over this stuff if she was with them," Lois professed, and he could hear the pride in her voice as she boasted about her cousin's abilities. "None of this 'unexplainable', 'no cause found', 'suspected mugging' crap. That's just the kind of cop-out people resort to when they aren't prepared to actually put some effort in."

Lois went on to detail some of the stories she read about, and her theories about what they might actually be. She mentioned a story her cousin had told her; about a guy she'd encountered in Metropolis who had some crazy abilities which he attributed to exposure to some special radioactive rock. Lois told him how her cousin had developed an interest in people like him, people she referred to as 'meteor freaks'.

Clark froze as he listened to Lois describing this boy who abilities as alien as his own had once been. He stared at her as she had been sceptical of her cousin when she'd mentioned these theories when they were in college, but how now she was wondering if there was something to it after all.

She was mostly talking to herself now, ruminating on various things that she'd read about. Clark was no longer hearing he words now…. His mind had slipped to something else. He was thinking about how if she was talking about these people (some of which he recognised as meteor-affected former inhabitants of Smallville, people he had encountered in his youth). Perhaps, he thought, if she accepted the idea of, maybe he could tell her.

He'd thought about it before. Wondered how she would react if he told her the things only a handful of people had ever known about him. He'd never even told Lana his secret, the woman he had asked to marry him. Not that it really made much of a difference after he lost his unusual abilities. He was just like anyone else now - nothing left to show how different he once was. There was nothing left to hide.

Initially Clark had been glad to be rid of them, to finally be like everyone else, but over the years, he'd started to feel the loss. He'd watched from his living room couch, with Lana curled up at his side as the news reported natural disasters, murders, shootings, bombings, and terrible fires that claimed dozens of lives.

He watched all of this knowing that, once upon a time, he could have helped. He could have saved all of those people; could have saved their families from the agony of losing a loved one. Instead he sat and watched as everyone else did, as helpless to offer aid as any of them.

"Lois," Clark interrupted her continued verbal stream of thought.

"Yeah?" Lois broke off, looking at him expectantly.

"I-" Clark struggled to find the words to explain.

Lois saw the look on his, and leaned forward, forgetting what she had been talking about.

"Lois… I used to be…. sort of…. like them. Those people you're talking about."

Lois's forehead crinkled in confusion.

"Like who? The meteor freaks?"

Clark flinched at the term 'freak', and Lois caught the reaction.

"Clark," Lois's voice was quiet and he could still see traces of her earlier confusion written in her expression, "Are you one of them? Can you…" Her sentence trailed off as she wasn't even sure what to ask.

Clark was quiet for a minute, his eyes fixed on the horizon, as though he were afraid to look at her.

"Not exactly…" Clark had only ever told one person his secret. He didn't really know what to say, or how much to say. He settled on the simplest description he could think of and forced himself to continue. "I used to be able to… do some things. Like them. Not anymore though. Not for a long time."

"But you're not one of them," Lois said slowly. Clark could almost hear her thinking in double time. "It wasn't the meteor rocks for you?"

"No. I was always different."

There was a pause before Lois posed a new question.

"What could you do?"

Clark turned look at her, finally. He looked at her with confusion – that was not the response he was expecting.

"What?"

"When you could do stuff…" Lois clarified, "What could you do?"

Clark stared at her for a minute before answering.

"I…. I was stronger."

"Stronger?" Lois echoed with her eyebrows raised in query. She obviously wanted more details.

"You know the tractor in the barn? The old red one?"

"Yeah?"

"When I was fourteen I accidentally… threw it."

Lois's eyes grew wide as saucers.

"You _threw_ a _tractor_?"

"Over the barn," Clark blurted.

"That's… woah. Really?"

Clark nodded.

"Hot." Lois said whispered so quietly Clark wasn't sure she'd even spoken.

"What?"

"Nothing," Lois said, though she continued to stare at him.

"Are you… ok?"Clark asked her apprehensively.

Lois nodded. She was processing the new information, fitting it together with what else she knew of Clark.

"Anything else you want to tell me?" she joked.

"I was fast too," Clark added, watching for her reaction.

She looked away from him for a moment, but her head snapped back to him at that announcement.

"You had more than one?! Power, I mean?"

Clark's lips twitched at the word she chose to describe his unusual abilities. It was such positive spin on things he used to hate for making him abnormal.

"Yes."

"Fast…" Lois tried the word out, testing it for meaning. She gave him a gauging look and probed, "Are we talking Olympic fast? Car fast? I-got-drunk-and-strapped-a-rocket-to-my-pick-up fast?"

"Probably the last option," Clark admitted.

Now Lois looked at him with disbelief.

"Any other tricks, Wonderboy?"

She was joking, but as it had gone okay so far, Clark threw it all out there.

"Well… I had very good hearing. And I could see through just about anything, start fires… oh! And I was pretty much invincible."

Lois narrowed her eyes at him.

"I genuinely can't tell if you're joking or not right now."

Clark grinned at her, feeling a light and playful mood come over him. He had never imagined a this conversation would go down so well with anyone.

"I had many talents," Clark paraphrased her early comment, accompanying the boast with his best cocky look.

"And modest too!" Lois mocked.

"Once," Clarked added, "I sneezed one of the barn doors off it's hinges and halfway across the county."

"Okay; now you're just making stuff up."


	24. Chapter 23

**A/N:** YEEEESSS! This is the last chapter I was really stuck on, thank god. I hadn't even plotted this part out until today... such a high to be posting it! :-D

* * *

**Chapter 23**

* * *

Clark didn't understand exactly how he came to be outside an abandoned factory in Granville at one am, participating in a breaking and entering.

Actually, no, he _did_ know how: Lois. That woman could talk him into anything, apparently.

Lois removed her lock picking implements from the padlock with a groan of irritation.

"Hey Clark?" she stage-whispered.

"Yes?" Clark responded, trying not to laugh at her frustrated face.

"Now would be an _excellent_ time for you to redevelop some of those special abilities of yours. Like the super strength. Or heat vision. You know; anything that might get us through this door."

Lois kicked the base of the detestable door to emphasise her point.

Clark shook his head good-naturedly at her suggestion, before reaching into the duffel at his feet to pull out the pair of bolt-cutters he'd retrieved from the barn before they left.

"Oooh!"

Lois's eyes lit up and she snatched them from him. She immediately set to work on the padlock.

"Thank-you Clark," Clark said to himself. "You're welcome."

Lois appeared not hear him.

"You know Clark, I think I'm rubbing off on you," she commented, her voice tense with the effort of trying to force the bolt cutters through the metal, "Couple of months with me and you're already thinking like a reporter."

"That's all you, huh?" Clark scoffed, coming over to place his hands over Lois's and help squeeze the handles shut.

"Of course," Lois said matter-of-factly. "1… 2… 3… go!"

On three, they both squeezed the bolt-cutter handles together until there was a satisfying 'thunk'.

Lois dropped the bolt-cutters pulled the now-broken padlock from the door before twirling back to Clark and continuing.

"If it wasn't for me you'd still be moping around the highlands writing about birds and P.I. Steven Jones."

"Probably," Clark admitted with an affectionate smile. And then he frowned, "Hey…. You read my manuscript!"

Lois grinned mischievously at his accusation.

"That's what happens when you don't password-protect your files."

"There _was_ a password on that one!"

"Pffft," Lois said, "Your date of birth doesn't count as a password. That's not even trying."

"I haven't told you when my birthday is," Clark commented, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

"Driver's license," She explained. "You know; that piece of plastic in your wallet with the basic identifying information on it, Clark Jerome Kent?"

Clark rolled his eyes at her use of his middle name.

"You have much to learn, grasshopper," Lois declared shaking her head at his naiveté.

"I'm sure you'll teach me."

"Yes. And if you don't learn, I'm going to start changing your passwords for you," Lois warned. "Now come on!"

Lois slipped through the door and into the darkened factory, and Clark followed with the torch. The factory machinery was dusty and had obviously fallen into disuse years before. Lois lead the way through the building, shining a smaller torch on the blue print and frowning at it.

After ten minutes of wandering, they came to a walled off area beneath stairs leading to the second floor. Lois stopped and looked it thoughtfully.

"What do you think is in there?" she asked Clark.

"Ahhh… cleaning products?" Clark suggested, tapping the sign on the door which read 'Janitor' as a reference.

"What kind of janitor needs a room that takes up half the width of the factory for their supplies?"

Clark looked again and saw what she meant. Lois grabbed the torch from Clark and opened the door. It was a reasonably spacious supply closet, but not as large as it looked from the outside. Lois walked to the far wall and knocked on it – the resulting sound was more resonant than Clark would expect from a solid wall.

Lois began feeling her way around the edges of the wall, looking for a way in. She had no luck. Lois stood back from the wall and stared at it, contemplating.

"There's got to be a way in."

After a moment, she suddenly darted out of the closet, pushing a surprised Clark ahead of her. Once they were out she walked to the end of the walled off area and shone the light around the factory walls until she found what she was looking for: the grill of an air vent. Lois pulled an army knife from her back pocket, and handed the torch back to Clark. She unscrewed the grill and pulled it away.

"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking… I'm not going to fit in there."

Lois grinned at him.

"Go back to the closet," she instructed, already slipping in through the opening.

"You'll get stuck in there!" Clark said apprehensively.

"You calling me fat?" Lois joked.

"I – " Clark spluttered, "No!"

"I'll be fine," Lois assured him. "This is not my first air vent escapade. Now go to the closet."

Clark still wasn't keen on this idea, but did as Lois asked once she slipped out of sight down the vent. He hadn't even been waiting five minutes before a rumbling sound came from below the floor, and seconds later, the wall shot down into the floor, revealing a very satisfied looking Lois standing in a small lift, dangling an access card from her hand.

"Somebody forgot their swipe card!" she announced in a sing-song voice.

Clark gave her an awed look and Lois preened.

"Yes Clark. I am magic. That's _my _super power."

"I guess I should just give up on the idea of ever keeping you out of anything right now, huh?"

Lois grinned and yanked him into the small space with her.

"Why would you ever want to keep me out of your things?" she said in a suggestive tone that had Clark nearly choking on his own tongue.

Lois laughed at his response, and pressed the 'down' button.

The elevator took them down to a level that Clark had never been shown when he had been taken for a tour of the building as one of Lex's business lessons. It appeared to have at one point been a lab of some sort. From the empty spaces and marks on the floors and walls, they could tell that much of the machinery and equipment that had once been here had been removed.

What remained were a few glass fronted fridges, the shelves mostly empty, except for a handful of petrie dishes and glassware. There were several rooms in the hidden basement, and the trailed through each of them, looking for some clue as to what the space had been used for.

"I may not be an expert on the agricultural industry," Lois said, breaking the silence they had fallen into, "But somehow, I don't think the super secret spy lab was used for developing new varieties of crop fertiliser."

Clark had to agree. This first evidence that his once best friend had indeed lied to him was hitting him like a slap in a face, but he continued on, following Lois.

In the third room they entered, Lois noticed a scrap of paper behind one of the fridges. She bent to retrieve it and as she did, she noticed something else. She grabbed the sheet, which was covered in chemical equations and diagrams, and then reached under the fridge with her fingers under the small gap for something she could see shining there. Sweeping her fingers through the space, she managed to knock it forward.

Clark flinched reflexively at the sight of green rock, the memory of the pain it used to cause him before he lost his powers sharp enough to make him wince.

"What is that?" Lois asked, pinching the fragment of green crystal between her thumb and fore finger to examine.

"It's meteor rock," Clark answered. "Kryptonite."

Lois raised an eyebrow.

"Now, _that _is interesting…"


	25. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

_In her dream, Lois was at her Uncle Gabe's house, in the backyard - it was her cousin Chloe's eighth birthday and she and Lucy were visiting for the week. They were playing hide and seek. _

_Lois could hear Lucy and Chloe giggling behind the toolshed, and she was stalking slowly closer, pretending (loudly) to look for them under pot plants and behind shrubs. She was really too old for this game, but it made her sister and her cousin happy._

_"Are they in the tool shed?" Lois called out, pulling the door open, peering into the darkness. Lucy let out a shriek of laughter that was muffled by her cousin's palm. Lois grinned – Lucy was terrible at hiding._

_She closed the door, already calling out._

_"aha! I know where they are! They must be behind the shed!" Lois sprang round the corner, intending to scare them, but they were gone._

_Frowning, Lois sidled behind the shed and sized up the gap in the fence. They'd loosened a couple of slats in the old fence and slipped through them. It was a tight squeeze, and she scratched herself on a nail crawling through it. Ignoring the narrow trail of blood now dripping down her arm, Lois spotted her cousin and sister running towards the woods behind the row of houses. _

_"I seeeeee you!" she called, "I'm gonna catch you!"_

_Lucy squealed in terror and tripped over. Chloe stopped to pull her up, and they ran on hand in hand. Lois took off after them. Lois chased them into the trees, gaining rapidly thanks to her long limbs. A few metres in the trees became thicker blotting out the sun and forcing Lois to slow down._

_She saw a flash of a blue party dress ahead – Chloe – and she darted after it. _

_"I see you Chloe and I'm gonna get you!" Lois called gleefully. No sooner had the words left her mouth than she had tripped over a tree root and landed face first in the snow._

_"Ugh!" Lois exclaimed, before quickly looking up to check that no one had seen her accident. _

_Chloe was gone, still running or maybe hidden amongst the trees ahead. Lois frowned at the snow – where had it come from? It hadn't been snowing, but suddenly she was surrounded by it. Snow and darkness, no longer the dappled shade of a canopy of leaves, but the darkness of night. _

_"Chloe?" Lois called, "Come back, It's dark already!"_

_She started running again, hindered by the snow which caught at her feet and tripped her._

_"Lucy?" she called out into the darkness as she ran after them, "Chloe?"_

_She hurtled through darkness and the cold, stumbling and tumbling until she woke._

Lois's eyes opened, the dream already slipping away from her.She rubbed her eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a while before deciding she wasn't going to get back to sleep, and besides, it was close enough to morning and she rolled out of the bed. Clark stirred at her movement, and she shushed him and told him to go back to sleep, she was fine. She crept quietly to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee, and took it to the living room.

Five minutes later Lois stood staring at the map on her apartment wall realising she was no closer to her goal. The excursion to Granville had really only raised more questions to add to an already exceedingly long list. It would have been simple if they'd found, say, a cache of illegal weapons. Empty labs and some rock samples weren't going to be anywhere near enough to take down a Luthor.

She recalled Clark's dark mood on the drive back to the city that afternoon. He seemed troubled by what they had found last night, and what it said about Lex Luthor. When she'd prodded him with questions, he told her he was thinking about his father. Jonathan Kent had apparently never been a fan of the Luthors.

He told her how, when he was younger Clark had criticised his father for being suspicious of Lex, for expecting him to turn out like his father. Now, Clark said, he was beginning to see that his father had been right after all, but it was too late for him to ever tell his father that.

She found her eyes wandering across the map to Europe, to Germany, in particular. It was the last place she'd known her sister to be. She hadn't heard from her in years, and even then it had only been because she needed someone to bail her out of her latest mess. Lucy was mess herself.

But then, wasn't everyone in their family a mess? Lois definitely was; she knew it. Their father never really got over losing their mother. Chloe was probably the only normal one in the bunch, thought Lois, and she felt the familiar sting as she remembered that Chloe was gone. Chloe was gone, her mom was gone… and she didn't even talk to the family she had left.

Lois dwelt on this for a while, and on the expression Clark wore when he spoke about his father that afternoon before she picked up the phone and, hesitatingly, dialled a number she had to check in her address book to be sure of. She hadn't used it in a long time; wasn't even entirely sure it was still correct.

It rang once, twice, three times. A few more times, then just as Lois was starting to hang up – what had possessed her anyway? – there was click as somebody picked up on the other end.

"Hello?"

Lois opened her mouth but couldn't seem to make a sound. She held the phone to her ear and listened to the young woman on the other end repeating her question, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Hey Lucy," Lois said softly.

"Lois?" Her sister's voice was surprised. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just wanted to talk."

"Okkaayyy…" Lucy trailed, sounding confused.

Lois started off with some basic awkward chit-chat questions. At first the conversation was stilted, but gradually they became a little more relaxed and the conversation flowed more easily. Lucy, it seemed, was getting her life into some sort of order. She had a job, an apartment… as Lois listened, she noticed Lucy sounded so much more mature than she had last time they'd spoken. Still a little on the wild side, but more calm, less angry.

Lois mentioned Clark and Lucy asked her a few questions about him, and then threw in a few random topics before she said she had to go to work.

"Talk to you later?" Lucy said, the tentative lilt to her voice showing that she was not entirely sure whether it would be welcomed.

"Sure," Lois responded. "Catchya!"

"Bye Lo!" Lucy said, her voice more confident now.

After that Lois, hung up the phone and returned her attention to the pin-covered map, tapping her finger tips on the now half-empty mug in her hands.

She thought about Lex Luthor and the way he held people in his grasp, manipulating the world to his advantage. He had seemingly infinite resources and pulled more strings than a puppeteer. She couldn't beat him. Not alone.

Sitting there with her legs curled under her and her fingers wrapped around the mug, a thought came to Lois. She considered it carefully, rolling it around in her mind and adding more to it until it grew into an idea, and then it started looking more and more like a plan.

By the time Lois had finished her coffee, she was smirking into the shadows like a Cheshire cat.


	26. Chapter 25

**A/N:**This is just a short update because I have just realised I have a couple of deadlines rapidly approaching but didn't want to leave you waiting until next week. Also didn't want to fall out of my every other day updating habit. Hope you still like it! :-)

* * *

**Chapter 25 **

"Stand still," Lois scolded Clark as she fiddled with his tie. "There. Perfect!"

Clark pulled at his collar a little uncomfortably – it had been quite a while since he'd worn a suit. He didn't remember them being this constricting. Lois stepped back and looked him over, head to toe.

"You need to wear suits more often," she declared.

Clark flushed at her words and the way she was very obviously checking him out in his freshly donned suit.

"You-You look…." Clark eyes again swept over Lois in the silky blue dress and loose curls that had taken his breath away when she burst into the room, "Beautiful"

Lois smiled up at him sweetly.

"Thank-you."

Clark trailed his fingertips briefly over the material over her side before pulling her gently to him. Lois smiled against his lips and slid her hands up his lapels and around the back of his neck. The slow and soft kiss gradually progressed to something more heated, before Lois pulled back with a sigh.

"It's time we should be going."

"Or we could stay here," Clark suggested, tugging Lois back closer.

"Don't tempt me."

"Why not? I like that idea," Clark smirked.

Lois bit her lip and paused at this. Clark was pleased to see she was very much tempted.

"Later," she promised. "Right now we have to go."

When they entered the lobby of the building the party Lois insisted on dragging him to was being held in, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. He barely had time to cast her a look of askance before she had established no one was looking and dragged him off around a corner. She led him to a service elevator, and swiped the detector with an access card from her pocket and pressed a button for the third floor.

Clark stared at her while the elevator rose. Lois avoided eye contact.

"Are we crashing this party?" Clark asked her.

"No," she replied, as the elevator doors opened.

She hooked her arm through his and tugged him down a short hall.

"Lois."

"Maybe."

"_Lois!_" Clark hissed in a tone borrowed from his mother as he was pulled through a kitchen full of chefs and food service staff who looked startled by the appearance of the formally dressed couple.

"It's for a good cause!" Lois said as she peeked through the windows in the swinging doors, "Now stop looking so awkward – you'll draw attention."

With that instruction, she slipped through the door into the ballroom and tugged a resigned Clark along behind her.

"What have you got planned?" he asked apprehensively.

"We're going to have a chat with a contact of mine," Lois answered. "He owes me a favour or two, and I think now is the time to cash in."

Clark relaxed a little at this - at least it wasn't something criminal this time. He guessed he should be grateful for that.

"How do you get that access card?" Clark whispered to her, his eyes roving over the ballroom full of elegantly dressed men and women.

"Friends in low places," Lois explained shortly before collecting a flute of champagne from one passing platter, and a canapé from the next. "Oooh, I love these."


End file.
